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Your six year old just wouldn't get out of bed this morning. She dawdled over breakfast and couldn't decide what to wear. You barely got her to school in time. Now you're stuck in traffic, already late for that 9:00am meeting with an important client. Your heart pumps more blood, and your adrenals are churning out that stress-induced villain cortisol, aided by that mug of coffee you sip as you drive. The "fight-or-flight" mechanism has kicked in. But you can't fight or fly. You're stuck in traffic.

Holy Basil

We live in stressful times. According to studies at the US National Institutes of Health, approximately 90 percent of all illnesses are caused or aggravated by stress. So what do we do? Well, exercise and meditation are excellent stress antidotes, but neither is an option when the clock reads 8:57am and you've got six more clogged kilometres to navigate.

Enter Holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum), an ancient Ayurvedic herb, known as Tulsi in Hindi, and botanically related to its culinary cousin sweet basil, finding an appreciative new clientele in our stressed-out 21st century for its ability to reduce cortisol and ease stress. According to Northwestern University assistant professor Emma Adam, "When [cortisol is] activated, you're putting kind of rest and repair operations on hold to deal with immediate crisis. If you're always activating the stress systems and not giving your emotions or your body a break then this constantly or chronically elevated level of [stress] hormones could cause wear and tear that contributes to a variety of stress related illnesses." (3)

Legend has it that Tulsi, a Hindu goddess and consort to Lord Vishnu, chose to be reincarnated as Holy Basil to express her devotion to him. In traditional Ayurvedic medicine, this sacramental herb is fever-reducing, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, blood purifying, antiparasitic, cough suppressing, diuretic, immune strengthening, a digestive aid, mind and memory enhancing and a nerve tonic.

But it is Holy Basil's demonstrated ability to lower cortisol and blood sugar levels that make it one of the hottest new supplements in North America.
Terry Vanderheyden, N.D., Ontario-based naturopathic doctor, says, "Although many customers use [Holy Basil] for its adaptogenic and stress-reducing properties - not unlike how one would use ginseng - my own recent experience with the herb was the resolution of a long-standing diabetic neuropathy in a patient."

Terry discovered Holy Basil for this use after reading a human study showing significant reductions in blood sugar in diabetics given Holy Basil (1). He also read laboratory research (2) indicating that diabetic animals' glucose tolerance tests normalized after they were given the herb. "A glucose challenge in Holy Basil-treated diabetic animals did not cause any spike in blood sugar whatsoever, while even non-diabetic animals still had normal (moderate) blood sugar elevations after being given glucose," he explains.

The Russian scientist Lazarev coined the term adaptogen in 1947 to describe substances that increase the body's non-specific resistance to stress. According to Lazarev, an adaptogen is an agent that allows the body to counter adverse physical, chemical or biological stressors by raising non-specific resistance towards such stress, thus enabling the body to "adapt" to it. A study published in 1991 in the Indian Journal of Pharmacology, compared Holy Basil favorably to two other well-known adaptogens, Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus) and Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng). The study found that Holy Basil was the most potent anti-stress agent of the three herbs and also had the highest margin of safety.

Some western herbalists and health professionals express reservations about the extravagant claims being made for Holy Basil, possibly because the herb isn't in the curriculum of western herbal studies. Albeit, Holy Basil has its devoted fans.

So, next time you're white-knuckling that steering wheel, forego the coffee and take some Holy Basil.

References:

1. Agrawal P, Rai V, Singh RB. Randomized placebo-controlled, single blind trial of Holy Basil leaves in patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 1996 September 34 (9): 406-9.
2. Mohammed HE. Biochemical Basis for the Antidiabetic Effect of Certain Plants Used in Traditional Ayurvedic/Unani Medicines. (Thesis submitted to the Pune University for the degree of doctor of philosophy in Chemistry). Pune, India: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research; 2002.
3.Northwestern University Newsfeed, Emma Adam on "The Effects of Cortisol" November 13, 2006 (http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/broadcast/2006/11/adam.html)

Healthy Living, Volume 7, Number 11, 2007, published by http://www.freedompressonline.com/

Botanical Pathways issue #11, July 2004, published by Pathway International Pty Limited (http://www.botanicalpathways.com/default_cookie.html).

"Holy Basil" was first published in alive magazine.

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