Posts made by Mauritio

@cs3000 what do you think about a catalase supplement ?

Given that selegiline, ergothioneine and other successful anti-aging substance all leverage the antioxidant pathway, it seems like something worth trying.
Plus over expression of catalase to mitochondria lead to a 20% increase in life span in mice.

The supplements are very cheap. The only issue I see is that of absorption. Would there be a systemic effect , penetrating into the cells and mitochondria?
If that wasn't the case there wouldn't be douzens of success stories of people reversing grey hair with it , since h2o2 is produced inside the cells and mitochondria .

@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 ?

@cs3000 @CrumblingCookie

Ferulic and vanillic acid seem to have some estrogenic properties. Maybe gigantol and Geranylgeraniol are some alternatives.

Quercetin and Ferulic Acid Elicit Estrogenic Activities In Vivo and In Silico
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37446770/

The authors' conclude that FA causes human breast cancer cell proliferation by up-regulation of HER2 and ERalpha expression.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16893382/

Ferulic acid possessed phytoestrogenic effect by up-regulating pS2 gene expression and the receptor subtype of ERalpha.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21246834/

Although this one says it Inhibits estrogen.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33987364/

I've found less evidence of vanillic acid being estrogenic so I'd be more willing to experiment with that one.

Effects are abolished by anti-estrogenic substance , which doesn't prove it to be directly estrogenic, sometimes they use weird substances with a lot of different effects.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25106917/
This study says that the Anti-osteoporosis effects of syringic acid and vanillic acid are not due to estrogen. Possibly even anti-estrogenic ?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31186185/
vanillin elevated both serotonin and dopamine levels in brain tissue.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25595338/

"Moreover, treatments with 10 μM gigantol increased StAR protein levels and progesterone production from MA-10 Leydig cells. However, neither ferulic acid nor isoferulic acid influenced StAR protein synthesis and progesterone production in MA-10 Leydig cells. "
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35723385

Gigantol seems interesting. Anti-cancer, Inhibits mTOR.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33737087/

Geranylgeraniol is another candidate. Also increases progesterone and testosterone. Probably easier to obtain .
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26757775/

It protects from muscle atrophy in this one.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7652489/

In this human study it slightly increases testosterone in males .
https://www.mdpi.com/1661-3821/3/4/43

@Ismail hey mate, I'll try it for one day first and see if sleep is impacted in any way...

The Acute Effects of a Commercially Available Caffeinated and Caffeine-Free Thermogenic Dietary Supplement on Resting Energy Expenditure, Hunger, and Hemodynamic Responses
https://www.mdpi.com/1661-3821/4/1/6

Another very impressive study about A. Melegueta a.k.a. Grains of Paradise.

Not only did rats on a high fat diet not gain weight they actually lost weight while on GoP. Rarely ever saw that.

It also increased UCP1 by more than 100% and PGC1a several fold.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1934578X211033744#sec-2

It can also quadruple rats testosterone , reduce prolactin and estrogen ,while not touching progesterone. For more info look at my posts on it on the former RPF.

So after another day I can say, it definitely feels androgenic, libido is increased, muscles fuller . Feeling more energetic and confident.

Yesterday I took it after work and starting getting energetic again but it also feels anti-stress at the same time.

Only downside is it messes with my sleep, only slept 6-7h last 2 days . Not sure why. There are some pro-dopamine substances in Tulsi like rosmarinic acid or ursolic acid.
It's not that I can't fall asleep, it just seems less restful and I wake up early .
I found a few reports of that on reddit, although other people say that it's great for sleep.

I'll do a washout of 2 days and then I'll try the Microdose of 25mg to replicate the above animal study where it still doubled testosterone in hopes of not getting sleep issues.
After that I'll probably try baiclin or the grains of paradise again .

"Result showed 5-HT released from platelet decreased..."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8043997/

Tulsi shortened the healing period of a fracture in animals by two weeks.
It also slightly increases calcium and lowers phosphate.

Subjectively I can say that my teeth feel more solid and stable a similar effect which I get from boron, which also increases calcium and vitamin D .

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4178353/

@samson You're getting a huge amount of chlorogenic acid from the blueberries. The same or even more than in the weight loss studies on humans. So that might be part of it, too.

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

4mg ursolic acid.

This study shows that even very small doses of ursolic acid can have an dopaminergicly mediated anti-depressant effect- HEDs of 0.5 and 0.05mg were effective while 5 and 50mg actually showed less / no benefit. So by me consuming 4mg im moving out of the benefit territtory. But tulsi is sp much more than ursolic acid, so its hard to say how it impacts overall effects. But I might try a lower dose in the future maybe like 1mg.

https://sci-hub.voed.top/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305712002377

In this study ursolic acid has spectacular results on Klotho, Sirt1 and 6 and PGCa. Although the dosage was 1250mg(HED), so not attainable from tulsi extract. But maybe lower doses have beneficial effect as well.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317266088_Ursolic_Acid_Mediates_Hepatic_Protection_through_Enhancing_of_anti-aging_Biomarkers