Definitely not a wine, quaffing or exceptionally complex, but I've been having fun exploring limoncello and now liquore al basilico, or basil liquor. I'll share the recipe I used with you. I chose to use a 750ml bottle of Platinum vodka (it's 7x distilled). I added the vodka to this jar along with 100 basil leaves and the zest (no pith) of half a lemon. Then I shook it vigorously and will shake it every day for the next 40 days. Then I'll strain the basil and lemon zest and add three or four cups of simple syrup to the mixture depending upon my personal taste. Simple syrup (ratio 1:1, 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water, boiled then cooled). I'll let this mixture rest for another 40 days in the freezer and then I'll start drinking it. This is my first time making liquore al basilico so I may edit the recipe as time goes on. Basil is remarkable and historical as you can read below.“Holy Basil is many splendored things, and the homeostatic body clings, to holy spirits good for you. . . .”
Those words are not exactly a mantra, but something I recited as I recently sipped a cup of tea in which were steeping 7 leaves of Ocimum tenuiflorum, or Holy Basil, formerly known as Ocimum sanctum, and known in Hindi as tulsi. And I added some to a glass of wine, too. It had been an extremely stressful day, and I had read a recent paper suggesting that the Ayurvedic tulsi has antistress activity.
The Evidence Base
These days, it is common for the pharmaceutical industry and its adherents to claim that there is no evidence for herbal medicine. They fail to mention what I noted in my October 2007 column,1 that: “Today, when it costs $1.7 billion to prove a new drug safe and efficacious, half of the drugs newly approved by the FDA will bbe recalled or relabeled within a decade.” So the pharmaceutical evidence is half wrong to begin with. In a pivotal and beautifully illustrated study, Khan and Balick2 found that of 166 different species of Ayurvedic herbs, 72 (43%) had been examined in at least one human study, and 103 (62%) had been examined in one or more animal studies. Animal studies of tulsi supported it as having adaptogenic, antidiabetic, antiedemic, anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic, anticancer, antiulcer, hypocholesterolemic, hypoglycemic, immunostimulant, radioprotective, and other properties—a pretty impressive array of credentials for this Hindu medicinal plant—but only one human study had been done of tulsi. The study indicated a significant decrease in fasting postprandial blood glucose, compared to placebo.2
Adaptogenic Activity
Winston and Maimes,3 in their interesting book on adaptogens, say that these substances “increase the body’s resistance to physical, biological, emotional and environmental stressors and promote normal physiologic functions.” Tulsi is a good example of an adaptogen. I have said: “All plants contain adaptogenic/tonic compounds and can behave in this fashion to some degree, because plants have to contend with stress themselves”3 During our evolution, our bodies have learned to extract from the phytochemical milieu substances that are useful for their homeostasis and to exclude others that they don’t need. We recognize homeostasis for simple things like selenium and zinc. I assume that homeostasis must also have evolved for many of the ubiquitous but more complex biologically active phytochemicals named in this column.
Among the more interesting indications reported by Winston and Maimes3 for Holy Basil was that alcoholic extracts of this herb prevented increased corticosterone levels indicative of increased stress in mice exposed to stressful noise. I have since been searching for and finding more and more evidence for such claims about this interesting plant.
Stress
Stress is one of the greatest enemies of American health. And Holy Basil may help against it. In a recent bstudy, Gupta et al.4 reported three newly identified phytochemical components of Holy Basil with antistress activity: ocimumosides A and B and ocimarin; and several other bioactive substances, including the cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor apigenin, which shows anxiolytic properties. Ocimumoside A promises to combat the effects of stress by correcting hyperglycemia, plasma levels of corticosterone and creatine kinase (CK), and adrenal hypertrophy, all of which it achieved at a dose of 40 mg/kg in rodents. Two other compounds reported by Gupta et al., ocimumoside B and 4-allyl- 1-O-beta-D-glucopyronosyl-2-hydroxybenzene, helped to reverse these changes toward normal, also at the dose of 40 mg/kg. I would predict that these three phytochemicals have additive or synergetic relationships.
At the possibly extreme dose of 400 mg/kg IP, Holy Basil5 increased swimming time in rats, suggesting to tbhe investigators who made these findings that it had central nervous system– stimulant and/or antistress activity. They called its effect comparable to that of the antidepressant drug desipramine.5 Sood et al.6 found that through its central effect, Holy Basil (tulsi) protected rat heart against changes.
Oxidative and inflammatory agents are potent sources of bodily stress. And as a result of that planet-saving process called photosynthesis, a plant produces most of its oxygen in its green tissues, such as leaves. It sebems only logical that plants need their own antioxidants, especially in their leaves, where oxygen is generated.
The entire article by Dr. Jim Duke: http://www.greenpharmacy.com/sites/default/files/Basil.txt
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