Best treatment for head lice

The beginning of school can be new and exciting, but it is also the peak season for head lice.

Head lice occur most frequently in young children between 3 and 10 years old. In the U.S., approximately 6 to 12 million children undergo treatment for head lice per year. Head lice are spread through direct contact between an infected person and an uninfected person. Although there are prescription medications that are effective in treating head lice, you might be surprised to learn that one nontraditional treatment, tea tree gel, may be as good as or even better at killing head lice.

The most common method of killing head lice is to treat the scalp and hair with a medication, permethrin. It is very effective and has few side effects. However, there are increasing reports of head lice developing resistance to permethrin, and stronger chemicals come with more side effects. Many people are looking to nontraditional alternatives: eucalyptus oil, echinacea, tea tree oil and extracts from other herbs.

Are these nontraditional therapies effective, however, and how do they compare to permethrin?

These questions were addressed in a recent medical study comparing the effectiveness of a number of nontraditional therapies to the permethrin approach. This study (published in the medical journal Medical and Veterinary Entomology) was done in Australia where head lice is a serious problem. In some schools, up to 30 percent of children are affected and permethrin resistance is increasingly common. Using very stringent methods for evaluating head lice mortality, the researchers discovered that most of the nontraditional therapies were relatively ineffective, except for tea tree gel.

Surprisingly, in this study, tea tree gel actually was better at killing head lice than permethrin. Almost 100 percent of head lice were killed by tea tree gel compared with 82 percent with permethrin. There were no significant side effects reported by either tea tree gel or permethrin.

Tea tree gel comes from tea tree oil, derived from the leaves of the tea tree, a native of Australia. Tea tree oil has been used for centuries as a treatment for many conditions including sore throats, open wounds and skin diseases. Now we can add head lice.

Even though there are few side effects to permethrin, not everyone wants to use a pesticide on their children – especially if nontraditional therapies for the treatment of head lice are as effective. Therefore, this study is timely and important: Head lice are increasingly resistant to permethrin; tea tree gel actually kills head lice and may be more effective than permethrin.

I hope you and your family will never experience head lice, but if you do, it is good to know that there are effective nontraditional therapies.

•Patrick B. Massey, M.D., Ph.D is medical director for complementary and alternative medicine for the Alexian Brothers Hospital Network.