Some of Joy's friends were using herbs instead of antibiotics to fight various infections. Joy had also read about the problem of antibiotic-resistant microbes. She wanted to know if herbs were a potential solution to the problem.
Joy created solutions from eight herbs: tea tree oil, astragalus, neem oil, grapefruit seed extract, garlic, olive leaf extract, lomatium, and usenea. She soaked sterile paper disks in each solution and placed the disks in agar plates with the bacteria E. coli and S. epidermidis. Joy did the same with six prescription antibiotics. Three of the herbs—grapefruit seed extract, olive leaf extract, and tea tree oil—inhibited bacterial growth. The prescription antibiotics were more effective, but Joy concluded that herbs, too, are useful in the fight against microbes.
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