Posted by Larry Hoover on February 14, 2005, at 6:58:23
In reply to Holy Basil, posted by Sarah T. on February 13, 2005, at 23:36:12
> Has anyone here tried Holy Basil, also known as "Ocimum sanctum" or "Tulsi"? I wish I could learn more about it. Unfortunately, there isn't much information about it, and a lot of the information that is available is provided by places that sell the product, so I tend to take what they say as advertisement rather than trusted facts. Holy Basil is supposed to lower cortisol and has some anti-inflammatory properties.
It both lowers cortisol, and has anti-inflammatory properties. It may also improve type-2 diabetes.
Here's a tip. When you know the species name of a plant (e.g. Ocimum sanctum), go to Pubmed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and just plug than species name in. In this case, five pages of hits, and the first few abstracts confirm the claims. If you want to explore a particular aspect of one abstract more fully, click on "Related Articles", and there's a fair to good chance you'll be linked to more articles of that theme (not always....I'm not sure how they determine what is "related").
I've never used this stuff, by the way. And you also should know that herbs should be taken only for limited periods, absent medical supervision. Typical patterns of use are two periods on, one period off. E.g. use for two weeks, one week break. Use for two months, one month break. It varies a bit between different herbs, but taking breaks minimizes chronic side effect issues.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:457419
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050131/msgs/457482.html