@CrumblingCookie interesting . Yeah it might have some messy hormonal effects.

@Hearthfire nice they used fresh basil in some studies so that's probably the best way to go!

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

@Mauritio
looks best trying close to sleep / or before last meal with carbs with the glucose effect, if theyre similar here maybe it wore off and caused lower gaba activity through the night? if dosed high the rebound could hit excessively looks potent

In this study O .basilicum extract had sleep benefits in menopausal women. Dosage: 250mg extract.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36750371/
Although in this study it showed no effect on sleep.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11795059/

so shows 1g of dry plant powder is too low for effects. i have effective dose of dried leaves powder at 2.5g - 7.5g

Even the microdose (30mg) caused waking up to early for me. It felt like hypoglycemia, woke up with a pounding heart.

But maybe you're onto something with the GABA theory. GABA rebound is real.

I obtained dried powder of both basils and will continue experimenting.

"The biochemical parameters of hepatic function, renal function, glucose, triglyceride, and cholesterol level were significantly reduced in the treatment groups compared with the control group (p < 0.05)"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39555564/#&gid=article-figures&pid=figure-1-uid-0

Another reason to favor O. Basilicum !
Yeah it does have a glucose lowering effect. There's a few studies on basil as a diabetes treatment . I notice the hypoglycemic effect.

Interesting in that dosage it actually caused sleep issues for me . Although that was O. Sanctum and not O. Basilicum as in this study.

In this study O .basilicum extract had sleep benefits in menopausal women. Dosage: 250mg extract.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36750371/

Although in this study it showed no effect on sleep.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11795059/

Rosmarinic acid.

Almost doubled testosterone in controls. And strongly protected against EMF damage . https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3847387/#sec12

It also protected against different types of radiation .
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11053252/

There might be a few MAO-B inhibitors in basil.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32883197/

Here's another cool study for basil (O. basilicium, NOT holy basil) on Testosterone.

If anyone is still following this thread at this point you might want to go for basil not holy basil. Or both. I just haven't seen a single negative study on basil in relation to testosterone and for holy basil there are a few.

In arsenic treated rats it was able to almost completely restore their testosterone values to normal . Unfortunately they didn't have a control+ basil group , but basil almost tripled the T value of the arsenic treated rats compared to only arsenic treated rats. It also restored sperm health and testes weight and increased antioxidant enzymes drastically .

All of this especially at the highest dose of 500mg/kg, HED= 6g of O. Basilicum 95% alcohol extract.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356840663_Potential_ameliorative_effects_of_Ocimum_basilicum_extract_and_leaves_on_testicular_toxicity_induced_by_sodium_arsenite_in_male_rats

Although in the basil microdose study they also state

"Each rat used 3 gr of the powder
daily for 45 days."

Not sure why they're saying this as this wasn't they did.

"One of the
subgroups, as the diabetic control group,
received normal saline and the other two
subgroups, as the treatment groups,orally
received 2 and 4 mg/kg of basil powder,..."
https://www.mlj.goums.ac.ir/article-1-774-en.html

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

here in rats feeding an extract crashed testosterone too , with LH going up in response,
again very high dose 500mg/kg of extract , 95% ethanol extract
ursolic acid didnt play much of a role

Interesting because that was the same dose caused an increase in progesterone in female mice without altering other hormones

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

is it the extract process, dose, or the location of the leaf creating the increase vs decrease?
they said ethanol here, was it 100%?)

I read that even amongst plants harvested from the same field the chemical composition varies a lot. So the best thing is probably to try out different kinds and dosages . I happen to have found an extract that works . But i also like the idea of the dried leave powder. I ordered some of the droed leave powder for basil and holy basil. Since they're pretty cheap.

@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

This study used basil not holy basil .
basil (Ocimum basilicum) and holy basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum, also called Ocimum sanctum) are different in chemical composition . While basil (Ocimum basilicum) also seems to have a pro- Testo effect, we can't transfer the dosage 1:1 to holy basil.
That was a mistake I made as well , study on Microdose-basil I posted actually uses basil not holy basil , so I don't know if I'd get the same effects from a microdose of holy basil. But since everything varies so much here anyway, it's best to just try it out.

The odd thing is that both the Microdose 25mg of basil and the mega dose 20g (1.5g/kg) seems to have the same effect on testosterone (increase in about 80-100%) that's a 1000x the dosage. Lol something doesn't add up here or the therapeutic window of Basil (Ocimum Basilicum) is extremely large.

The side effects only showed with Ocimum Sanctum not O. Basilicum, so maybe it is even a better alternative ?