The complementary therapy, evening primrose oil, does not offer any benefit to people with the skin condition eczema, a new review indicates.

Eczema is a group of skin complaints that can affect all age groups and can occur anywhere on the body.

The most common type is atopic eczema, sometimes referred to as atopic dermatitis. This is a chronic and often painful inflammation of the skin. It results in an itchy, scaly, weepy red rash and is very widespread in the Irish population, particularly among children. In fact, around 20% of Irish children develop the condition, with two in three developing it before the age of six months.

Common treatments include various creams, ointments, topical steroids and antihistamines. Many people also use complementary therapies such as evening primrose oil and borage oil. These contain high levels of gamma linoleic acid, which was previously thought to help reduce eczema-related skin inflammation.

US scientists decided to investigate whether these therapies actually helped the skin condition. They analysed 27 studies involving over 1,500 adults and children with eczema in 27 countries.

All of the participants had taken evening primrose oil, borage oil or a placebo for between three and 24 weeks.

The scientists from Minnesota found that the two complementary therapies did not lead to an improvement in eczema symptoms when compared with the placebo. There was also no improvement in the quality of life of sufferers.

"There is no evidence that taking either evening primrose or borage oil is of benefit to eczema sufferers. Given the strength of the evidence in our review, we think further studies on the use of these complementary therapies to treat eczema would be hard to justify," they said.

Details of these findings are published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2013.

For more information on eczema, see our Eczema Clinic here