Foundational Wellness and Pharmacokinetics

Welcome back to Harvesters’ Corner! The 2025 dōTERRA Convention was fantastic, with several innovative products revealed. As I pondered what this post was going to focus on, one talk kept echoing in my mind. It is Dr. David Hill’s message from the first day. His message really struck a chord with me, primarily for the clarification he provided on the critical topic of foundational wellness. I have been experiencing a chronic respiratory condition for several years now, and when Dr. Hill asked at the beginning of his speech, “What does it mean to actually be healthy? What does it mean to have health and how do we define that?” (1) I leaned forward to hear more about what he had to say.

Dr. David Hill is one of the founding executives of dōTERRA, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Hill has been an advocate for essential oils, promoting their use in everyday life and encouraging research studies to broaden our understanding of essential oil capabilities. I quickly developed an appreciation for his honesty and knowledge after I started using the oils.

“We should be asking ourselves, not in the disruptive way of what does it mean to be healthy, but we should be asking ourselves, ‘So how can I become healthy?’,” he later asked, and then added, “How can I stay healthy and have resilience and the capacity that I need?” Consider for a moment what it means to have health. How do we define that condition? Is it the absence of any abnormalities? Can a person with a chronic health issue, like myself, say that I am healthy? More importantly, how can I become healthy? These thoughts were echoing inside my head as he then stated, “That is the whole purpose and function behind what we have been talking about, which is foundational wellness.”

Foundational Wellness.

There were quite a few presenters during the 2024 Convention who shared insights into the Wellness Pyramid. The pyramid’s base, or foundation, is “Nutrition and Digestion.” The idea of it being “foundational wellness” had never really occurred to me. But what, exactly does Dr. Hill mean when he discusses that concept? Thankfully, he gave a couple of examples to clarify. “In the real world,” he stated, “as we face different things that are happening to us, we put them in the context of if I don’t have any outward symptoms, [or] if I can just manage those, then somehow I’m perfectly fine.” I shared that statement with my husband, who said that he deals with many different patients who are adamant that they are fine and healthy, even though their kidneys are failing, their livers aren’t functioning properly or are experiencing digestive issues.

Dr. Hill then stated that in dōTERRA, “We think of it differently. We’re trying to build a construct of normal, healthy functioning cells…which make up tissues, which make up organs, which make up body systems and allows us to function optimally.” Foundational wellness is achieved as we provide the trillions of cells in our body with what they need to function properly. He added, “And in fact, your cells need two primary things, and only two primary things. We need good communication…that goes from one cell to another…The other thing that we need is…foundational nutrition.’

Our bodies work through two cycles called feedback loops. There is a positive feedback loop, as well as a negative feedback loop. Consider the following scenario. You have been working hard all day and suddenly start to feel sluggish and tired. Your stomach rumbles, and you feel hungry. If you ignore these feelings, they increase in intensity. This is an example of a positive feedback loop, where sensations continue to increase. You don’t eat, you feel hungrier. If you still don’t eat, your brain starts triggering new stimuli that draws our attention to food. But then you get lunch and eat. The feedback loop diminished because the stomach is full. This is a negative feedback loop, where the sensations decrease as we address the stimuli. In the above scenario, we experience a second negative feedback loop, as well. As we eat, our stomachs get full, and a signal goes to our brain that we don’t need to eat any more food. The stimuli that drive these loops is the cellular communication Dr. Hill spoke of.

Pharmacokinetics? What is this?

I want to pause for a moment to introduce the term pharmacokinetics. This is the study of how a chemical substance interacts with the tissues of the body. It identifies how a substance enters the body, how and why it affects what it does, and how the substance gets eliminated. Why is this important? It enables researchers to better understand how essential oils interact with the body. During the Science Symposium held in 2024, Dr. Nicole Stevens, Vice-President of Clinical Research for dōTERRA, offered a parallel analogy to help us better understand pharmacokinetics. She compared our body to a city we are visiting for the first time. Dr. Stevens presented questions such as ‘How do we get into the city?’, ‘What do we do while in the city?’, and ‘How do we leave after we are done?’ These questions echo ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Elimination), the acronym used in studying pharmacokinetics.

We know that there are three main means by which essential oils can be used, namely topical, aromatic, and internal applications. What we are still learning is how these applications affect the body. Dr. Hill used Peppermint oil as an example to provide us with some insight concerning just how an essential oil’s effects change based on how it is used. When Peppermint is taken internally, research shows that calcium levels taken into cells decrease. This causes the smooth muscle in the body to relax and inhibits tissue excitability.  When Peppermint is used aromatically the central nervous system becomes excited and results in increased alertness. When the oil is applied topically, the result is an increase of sodium and calcium entering nerve cells to produce a neurological response interpreted as a cooling sensation.

 From a pharmacokinetic perspective, the oil enters the body {or enters the city, using Dr. Stevens’ analogy) when it gets absorbed through the skin, the walls of the digestive tract, or through the mucal membranes in the nose and lungs. The form of application, be it topical, aromatic, or internal, determines the distribution route to the cells (the streets, so to speak), which then determines how the oil gets metabolized (what to see and do, again based on the map analogy), and ultimately eliminated (how we leave the city). Through her research, Dr. Stevens has identified the peak time and half-life of several components in Peppermint essential oil. I want to look at three molecules, namely alpha-pinene, limonene, and linalool, in the chart below.

			Peppermint Essential Oil
Component	Sensation	Peak Time	Half-life
A-Pinene	Relaxing	2 hours	2-4 hours
Limonene	Uplifting	2 hours	3 hours
Linalool	Calming	1 hour	4 hours

The peak time represents when the oil reaches its maximum concentration in the blood stream, while the half-life is the amount of time required for the concentration of the oil to decrease by fifty percent. In other words, if we put two drops of Peppermint essential oil in a cup of water and drink it, how much time would pass before the oil in the blood stream would be comparable to if we had drunk only one drop of oil. I find it interesting that linalool provides its calming influence on our bodies for as long as it does. Even though all three of these components are minor elements in Peppermint, they still exert a powerful effect on the body. I focused on these three components because of their broad availability in multiple essential oils which we use. Pharmacokinetics provides us with the ability to better identify how and why the essential oils affect our tissues and organ systems. This then empowers us to be able to use that knowledge to more fully understand how we can utilize these products as we work towards a better understanding of foundational nutrition.

I know that these can be complex concepts to understand, and not all of my readers will appreciate this post. There are times when the science can get deep and difficult to comprehend. Part of the reason why I do these periodic science blogs is to help us better understand these concepts. As we increase our knowledge of how these gifts of the earth work, we can put them to better use in our lives. At the minimum, know that our bodies know how to use the oils. And as Dr. Hill stated at the Science Symposium held in conjunction with the 2024 convention, “You may not understand the science, but know that we do.”

Foundational nutrition is key to us becoming healthy. How many people have been told by a medical provider that eating properly, getting some exercise, and losing weight are great places to start where health is concerned? I know that I have. I mentioned earlier that dōTERRA released some innovative products at the convention this year. Some of these were improvements on existing products in the catalogue. Almost all of the new products had one thing in common, and that’s helping to improve our foundational nutrition. Two key products are the vitamin packet and the Omega oils. Our next couple of blogs will be taking a deeper look at both of these items and seeing how they help our bodies function better. I encourage you to take the time to read these blogs when they come out so you can see the future of foundational nutrition. Until then, keep pursuing what’s pure, and stay safe!

SOURCES

1.       The quotes from Dr. Hill have been transcribed from the 2025 Convention. Dr. Stevens’ comments are from the 2024 Oil Symposium held prior to the 2024 Convention.

Disclaimer

All views on Harvesters’ Corner are those of the author. I am a Wellness Advocate with dōTERRA, and I use the essential oils daily. Any purchases made through my affiliate link may earn me a commission. The oils are not intended to treat or cure any illness.