Holy Basil: Phyto-TESTOSTERONE, Progesterone and thyro-mimetic ?

lobotomize-me

@Mauritio @Kvirion I’ve looked a bit more into which compounds may be responsible for DHT inhibition in basil, and I found that it’s probably linalool and/or 1,8-cineole. Some ways to reduce these compounds are:

Drying the basil at 40°C – This can reduce linalool content by up to 59%, according to studies.
Hot water infusion – Both linalool and 1,8-cineole are oils and therefore hydrophobic, meaning they tend to remain in the leaves. Meanwhile, water-soluble compounds like rosmarinic acid dissolve into the infusion.
Use Ocimum basilicum var. purpureum – This variety contains only up to 0.2% linalool and no significant presence of 1,8-cineole. Instead, methyl chavicol dominates, making up about 57.3%.
Add baking soda to the solution – This can make the phytoestrogens in basil less stable

Kvirion

@lobotomize-me Nice find, thanks!
So, some next experiments before me...

cs3000

@lobotomize-me thanks , so where it could increase T3 u expect to see more steroids, but the Test increase could be also somewhat from lower conversion to dht by the looks of it then when using certain extracts, from things in ethanol fraction
i dont think its functionally estrogenic by default because the cortisol also dropped a lot in the OP male lamb study. looks to be sex dependant because of stimulating hormone production at gonads? as the lambs shouldnt have had lower cortisol and higher test if it was estrogenic to them right

but theres a lot of mixed results with it maybe because of the extracts

(broadly most studies only give insight on test increase instead of dht, not always insight alone into if net androgenic i guess. e.g
finasteride can raise test a little where its lowering conversion to dht. though it lowers DHT 50% and only gives like a 10% test increase with that drop. so much of a big Test increase wouldnt be the decreased conversion going by that)

if the oils are mostly responsible for downsides u only get low amounts of essential oils when just ingesting the leaves instead of concentrated extract (gotta be powdered unless chewing for humans to break through the cellulose. or doing hot water infusion like u mentioned) https://iwaponline.com/aqua/article/70/5/773/82378/Essential-oil-and-linalool-contents-in-basil
like 0.5% oil and only 5% of that as linalool, of dry leaves, so 5mg total oils per gram

probably why the studies giving them just the leaves showed good results,
not pushing the oil so much?

, the Jumbo 4320 Thai basils water extract showed the highest total phenolic content at the value of 459.62 ± 3.07 mg gallic acid equivalent/100 g

follow by ethanol and ethyl acetate extracts at 179.80 ± 0.55 and 56.95 ± 0.99 mg GAE/100 g, respectively.1

using water only extract showed a nice effect on diabetes. ~~but high amount~~ (17.5% of dried water extract compared to dry powder weight so 6x dose) https://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=pjbs.2020.1010.1017

@cs3000 said in Holy Basil: Phyto-TESTOSTERONE, Progesterone and thyro-mimetic ?:

But this one, using very high dose of 80% ethanol : 20% water extract, raised testosterone without crashing LH or causing infertility
https://academicjournals.org/article/article1380729420_Khaki et al.pdf from leaves bought in iran. the rabbit study was india

300mg/kg dose of just the oil extract caused infertility and lowered testosterone , 100mg/kg didnt raise or lower testosterone https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jabs/issue/34910/387191
so its probably the water soluble compounds responsible , or leaves from certain locations

Mauritio

@cs3000 well said