Question: Do you think that plant oils that contain antibiotic compounds will ever replace synthetic drugs for common colds/flus?

Sarah Ashwood answered on 18 Nov 2014:

The natural compounds that exist in plant oils and stuff are often what we use as inspiration for drug molecules. If you take a certain compound from a plant and work out if it has any biological activity against a type of bacteria or in a cell then this is often the basis for where ou start trying to build a dug molecule.
Plant oils often contain so many different types of compounds that we don’t know the full effects in the body. When you take a drug you’re getting a controlled dose of one specific compound. So it’s kinda like a way of taking the goodness of the plant oil but without the stuff that might be harmful.