Holy Basil: What Does (And Doesn’t) It Do?
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First, a quick clarification:
- Ocimum sanctum is the botanical name given to what in English we call holy basil, and is what we will be discussing today. It’s also called “tulsi“, so if you see that name around, it is the same plant.
- Ocimum basilicum is the botanical name given to culinary basil, the kind you will find in your local supermarket. This one looks similar, but it has a different taste (culinary basil is sweeter) and a different phytochemical profile, and is certainly not the same plant.
We have touched on holy basil before, in our article:
Herbs For Evidence-Based Health & Healing
…where we listed that it helps boost immunity, per:
It’s popularly also consumed in the hopes of getting many other benefits, including:
- Calming effects on the mood (anti-stress)
- Accelerated wound-healing
- Anticancer activity
So, does it actually do those things?
Against stress
We literally couldn’t find anything. It’s often listed as being adaptogenic (reduces stress) in the preamble part of a given paper’s abstract, but we could find no study in any reputable journal that actually tested its effects against stress, and any citations for the claim just link to other papers that also include it in the preambleβand while “no original research” is a fine policy for, say, Wikipedia, it’s not a great policy when it comes to actual research science.
So… It might! There’s also no research (that we could find) showing that it doesn’t work. But one cannot claim something works on the basis of “we haven’t proved it doesn’t”.
For wound healing
Possibly! We found one (1) paper with a small (n=29) sample, and the results were promising, but that sample size of 29 was divided between three groups: a placebo control, holy basil, and another herb (which latter worked less well). So the resultant groups were tiny, arguably to the point of statistical insignificance. However, taking the study at face value and ignoring the small sample size, the results were very promising, as the holy basil group enjoyed a recovery in 4 weeks, rather than the 5 weeks recovery time of the control group:
Herbal remedies for mandibular fracture healing
An extra limitation that’s worth noting, though, is that healing bone is not necessarily the same as healing other injuries in all ways, so the same results might not be replicated in, say, organ or tissue injuries.
Against cancer
This time, there’s lots of evidence! Its mechanism of action appears to be severalfold:
- Anti-inflammatory
- Antioxidant
- Antitumor
- Chemopreventive
Because of the abundance of evidence (including specifically against skin cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, and more), we could list studies all day here, but instead we’ll just link this one really good research review that has a handy navigation menu on the right, where you can see how it works in each of the stated ways.
Here’s the paper:
An Update on the Therapeutic Anticancer Potential of Ocimum sanctum L.: βElixir of Lifeβ
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon π
Enjoy!
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STI rates are increasing among midlife and older adults. We need to talk aboutΒ it
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Globally, the rates of common sexually transmissible infections (STIs) are increasing among people aged over 50. In some cases, rates are rising faster than among younger people.
Recent data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that, among people aged 55 and older, rates of gonorrhoea and chlamydia, two of the most common STIs, more than doubled between 2012 and 2022.
Australian STI surveillance data has reflected similar trends. Between 2013 and 2022, there was a steady increase in diagnoses of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis among people aged 40 and older. For example, there were 5,883 notifications of chlamydia in Australians 40 plus in 2013, compared with 10,263 in 2022.
A 2020 study of Australian women also showed that, between 2000 and 2018, there was a sharper increase in STI diagnoses among women aged 55β74 than among younger women.
While the overall rate of common STIs is highest among young adults, the significant increase in STI diagnoses among midlife and older adults suggests we need to pay more attention to sexual health across the life course.
Fit Ztudio/Shutterstock Why are STI rates rising among older adults?
STI rates are increasing globally for all age groups, and an increase among midlife and older people is in line with this trend.
However, increases of STIs among older people are likely due to a combination of changing sex and relationship practices and hidden sexual health needs among this group.
The βboomerβ generation came of age in the 60s and 70s. They are the generation of free love and their attitude to sex, even as they age, is quite different to that of generations before them.
Given the median age of divorce in Australia is now over 43, and the internet has ushered in new opportunities for post-separation dating, itβs not surprising that midlife and older adults are exploring new sexual practices or finding multiple sexual partners.
People may start new relationships later in life. Tint Media/Shutterstock Itβs also possible midlife and older people have not had exposure to sexual health education in school or do not relate to current safe sex messages, which tend to be directed toward young people. Condoms may therefore seem unnecessary for people who arenβt trying to avoid pregnancy. Older people may also lack confidence negotiating safe sex or accessing STI screening.
Hidden sexual health needs
In contemporary life, the sex lives of older adults are largely invisible. Ageing and older bodies are often associated with loss of power and desirability, reflected in the stereotype of older people as asexual and in derogatory jokes about older people having sex.
With some exceptions, we see few positive representations of older sexual bodies in film or television.
Older peopleβs sexuality is also largely invisible in public policy. In a review of Australian policy relating to sexual and reproductive health, researchers found midlife and older adults were rarely mentioned.
Sexual health policy generally targets groups with the highest STI rates, which excludes most older people. As midlife and older adults are beyond childbearing years, they also do not feature in reproductive health policy. This means there is a general absence of any policy related to sex or sexual health among midlife or older adults.
Added to this, sexual health policy tends to be focused on risk rather than sexual wellbeing. Sexual wellbeing, including freedom and capacity to pursue pleasurable sexual experiences, is strongly associated with overall health and quality of life for adults of all ages. Including sexual wellbeing as a policy priority would enable a focus on safe and respectful sex and relationships across the adult life course.
Without this priority, we have limited knowledge about what supports sexual wellbeing as people age and limited funding for initiatives to engage with midlife or older adults on these issues.
Midlife and older adults may have limited knowledge about STIs. Southworks/Shutterstock How can we support sexual health and wellbeing for older adults?
Most STIs are easily treatable. Serious complications can occur, however, when STIs are undiagnosed and untreated over a long period. Untreated STIs can also be passed on to others.
Late diagnosis is not uncommon as some STIs can have no symptoms and many people donβt routinely screen for STIs. Older, heterosexual adults are, in general, less likely than other groups to seek regular STI screening.
For midlife or older adults, STIs may also be diagnosed late because some doctors do not initiate testing due to concerns they will cause offence or because they assume STI risk among older people is negligible.
Many doctors are reluctant to discuss sexual health with their older patients unless the patient explicitly raises the topic. However, older people can be embarrassed or feel awkward raising matters of sex.
Resources for health-care providers and patients to facilitate conversations about sexual health and STI screening with older patients would be a good first step.
To address rising rates of STIs among midlife and older adults, we also need to ensure sexual health promotion is targeted toward these age groups and improve accessibility of clinical services.
More broadly, itβs important to consider ways to ensure sexual wellbeing is prioritised in policy and practice related to midlife and older adulthood.
A comprehensive approach to older peopleβs sexual health, that explicitly places value on the significance of sex and intimacy in peopleβs lives, will enhance our ability to more effectively respond to sexual health and STI prevention across the life course.
Jennifer Power, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How To Reduce Chronic Stress
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Sunday Stress-Buster
First, an important distinction:
- Acute stress (for example, when stepping out of your comfort zone, engaging in competition, or otherwise focusing on something that requires your full attention for best performance) is generally a good thing. It helps you do you your best. Itβs sometimes been called βeustressβ, βgood stressβ.
- Chronic stress (for example, when snowed under at work and you do not love it, when dealing with a serious illness, and/or faced with financial problems) is unequivocally a bad thing. Our body is simply not made to handle that much cortisol (the stress hormone) all the time.
Know the dangers of too much cortisol
We covered this as a main feature last month: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
β¦but it bears mentioning again and for those whoβve joined us since then:
A little spike of cortisol now and again can be helpful. Having it spiking all the time, or even a perpetual background low-to-moderate level, can be ruinous to the health in so many ways.
The good news is, the physiological impact of stress on the body (which ranges from face-and-stomach fat deposits, to rapid aging), can be reversedβeven the biological aging!
Read: Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery β this study is so hot-of-the-press that it was published literally two days ago
Focus on what you can control
A lot of things that cause you stress may be outside of your control. Focus on what is within your control. Oftentimes, we are so preoccupied with the stress, that we employ coping strategies that donβt actually deal with the problem.
Thatβs a maladaptive response to an evolutionary quirkβour bodies havenβt caught up with modern life, and on an evolutionary scale, are still priming us to deal with sabre-toothed tigers, not financial disputes, for example.
But, how to deal with the bodyβs βwrongβ response?
First, deal with the tiger. There isnβt one, but your body doesnβt know that. Do some vigorous exercise, or if thatβs not your thing, tense up your muscles strongly for a few seconds and then relax them, doing each part of your body. This is called progressive relaxation, and how it works is basically tricking your body into thinking you successfully fled the tiger, or fought the tiger and won.
Next, examine what the actual problem is, thatβs causing you stress. Youβre probably heavily emotionally attached to the problem, or else it wouldnβt be stressing you. So, imagine what advice you would give to help a friend deal with the same problem, and then do that.
Better yet: enlist an actual friend (or partner, family member, etc) to help you. We are evolved to live in a community, engaged in mutual support. Thatβs how we do well; thatβs how we thrive best.
By dealing with the problemβor sometimes even just having support and/or something like a planβyour stress will evaporate soon enough.
The power of β…and then what?β
Sometimes, things are entirely out of your control. Sometimes, bad things are entirely possible; perhaps even probable. Sometimes, theyβre so bad, that itβs difficult to avoid stressing about the possible outcomes.
If something seems entirely out of your control and/or inevitable, ask yourself:
β…and then what?β
Writerβs storytime: when I was a teenager, sometimes I would go out without a coat, and my mother would ask, pointedly, βBut what will you do if it rains?!β
Iβd reply βIβll get wet, of courseβ
This attitude can go just the same for much more serious outcomes, up to and including death.
So when you find yourself stressing about some possible bad outcome, ask yourself, β…and then what?β.
- What if this is cancer? Well, it might be. And then what? You might seek cancer treatment.
- What if I canβt get treatment, or it doesnβt work? Well, you might die. And then what?
In Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), this is called βradical acceptanceβ and acknowledges bad possible/probable/known outcomes, allows one to explore the feelings, and come up with a plan for managing the situation, or even just coming to terms with the fact that sometimes, suffering is inevitable and is part of the human condition.
Itβll still be badβbut you wonβt have added extra suffering in the form of stress.
Breathe.
Donβt underestimate the power of relaxed deep breathing to calm the rest of your body, including your brain.
Also: weβve shared this before, a few months ago, but this 8 minute soundscape was developed by sound technicians working with a team of psychologists and neurologists. Itβs been clinically tested, and found to have a much more relaxing effect(in objective measures of lowering heart rate and lowering cortisol levels, as well as in subjective self-reports) than merely βrelaxing musicβ.
Try it and see for yourself:
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What Macronutrient Balance Is Right For You?
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Itβs Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where weβve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future tooβthereβs always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, weβll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, weβll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small π
βI want to learn more about macros. Can you cover that topic?β
Thatβs a little broader than we usually go for, given the amount of space we have, but letβs give it a go!
Macronutrients, or βmacrosβ, are the nutrients that we typically measure in grams rather than milligrams or micrograms, and are:
- Carbohydrates
- β¦and what kinds, of which usually the focus is on how much is sugars as opposed to more complex carbs that take longer to break down. See also: Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
- β¦and of the sugars, the interested may further categorize them into sucrose, fructose, etc. See also: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
- Proteins
- β¦of which, the amino acid make-up is generally considered a matter of micronutrients. See also: Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?
- Fats
- β¦and what kinds, i.e. monounsaturated vs polyunsaturated vs saturated. See also: Saturated Fat: Whatβs The Truth?
- β¦and then the interested may further categorize them for their fatty acids / triglycerides profile, etc. See also: What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us
- Fiber
- β¦which often gets ignored by people counting macros, as βstuff that doesnβt do anythingβ, despite it in fact being very important for health. See also: Why Youβre Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- Water
- β¦which again tends to get disregarded but is very arguably a critical macronutrient. See also: Busting The Myth of βEight Glasses Of Water A Dayβ
In terms of how much we need of each, you can read more in the above-linked articles, but:
- General scientific consensus is we need plenty of fiber (30 or 40g per day is good) and water (highly dependent on climate and activity), and thereβs a clear minimum requisite for protein (usually put at around 1g of protein per day per 1kg of body weight).
- There is vigorous debate in the general health community about what the best ratio of carbs to fat is.
The reality is that humans are quite an adaptable species, and while we absolutely do need at least some of both (carbohydrates and fats), we can play around with the ratios quite a bit, provided we donβt get too extreme about it.
While some influence is social and often centered around weight loss (see for example keto which seeks to minimize carbs, and volumetrics, which seeks maximise volume-to-calorie ratio, which de facto tends to minimize fats), some of what drives us to lean one way or the other will be genetics, tooβdependent on what our ancestors ate more or less of.
Writerβs example: my ancestors could not grow much grain (or crops in general) where they were, so they got more energy from such foods as whale and seal fat (with protein coming more from reindeer). Now, biology is not destiny, and I personally enjoy a vegan diet, but my genes are probably why I am driven to get most of my daily calories from fat (of which, a lot of fatty nuts (donβt tell almonds, but I prefer walnuts and cashews) and healthy oils such as olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil).
However! About that adaptability. Provided we make changes slowly, we can usually adjust our diet to whatever we want it to be, including whether we get our energy more from carbs or fats. The reason we need to make changes slowly is because our gut needs time to adjust. For example, if your vegan writer here were to eat her ancestrally-favored foods now, Iβd be very ill, because my gut microbiome has no idea what to do with animal products anymore, no matter what genes I have. In contrast, if an enthusiastic enjoyer of a meat-heavy diet were to switch to my fiber-rich diet overnight, theyβd be very ill.
So: follow your natural inclinations, make any desired changes slowly, and if in doubt, itβs hard to go wrong with enjoying carbs and fats in moderation.
Learn more: Intuitive Eating Might Not Be What You Think
Take care!
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Cross That Bridge β by Samuel J. Lucas
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Books of this genre usually have several chapters of fluff before getting to the point. You know the sort:
- Let me tell you about some cherry-picked celebrity stories that overlook survivorship bias
- Let me tell you my life story, the bad parts
- My life story continued, the good parts now
- What this book can do for you, an imaginative pep talk that keeps circling back to me
β¦then there will be two or three chapters of the actual advertised content, and then a closing chapter thatβs another pep talk.
This book, in contrast, throws that out of the window. Instead, Lucas provides a ground-up structure… within which, he makes a point of giving value in each section:
- exercises
- summaries
- actionable advice
For those who like outlines, lists, and overviews (as we do!), this is perfect. There are also plenty of exercises to do, so for those who like exercises, this book will be great too!
Caveat: occasionally, the book’s actionable advices are direct but unclear, for example:
- Use the potential and power of tea, to solve problems
Context: there was no context. This was a bullet-pointed item, with no explanation. It was not a callback to anything earlier; this is the first (and only) reference to tea.
However! The book as a whole is a treasure trove of genuine tips, tools, and voice-of-experience wisdom. Occasional comments may leave you scratching your head, but if you take value from the rest, then the book was already more than worth its while.
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Moringa Oleifera Against CVD, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s & Arsenic?
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The Healthiest Drumstick
Moringa oleifera is a tree, whose leaves and pods have medicinal properties (as well as simply being very high in nutrients). Itβs also called the drumstick tree in English, but equally often itβs referred to simply as Moringa. It has enjoyed use in traditional medicine for thousands of years, and its many benefits have caught scientistsβ attention more recently. For an overview before we begin, see:
Now, letβs break it downβ¦
Anti-inflammatory
It is full of antioxidants, which weβll come to shortly, and they have abundant anti-inflammatory effects. Research into these so far has mostly beennon-human animal studies or else in vitro, hence the guarded βpotentialβ for now:
Potential anti-inflammatory phenolic glycosides from the medicinal plant Moringa oleifera fruits
Speaking of potential though, it has been found to also reduce neuroinflammation specifically, which is good, because not every anti-inflammatory agent does that:
Antioxidant
It was hard to find studies that talked about its antioxidant powers that didnβt also add βand this, and this, and thisβ because of all its knock-on benefits, for example:
βThe results indicate that this plant possesses antioxidant, hypolipidaemic and antiatherosclerotic activities and has therapeutic potential for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
These effects were at degrees comparable to those of simvastatin.β
~ Dr. Pilaipark Chumark et al.
Likely a lot of its benefits in these regards come from the plantβs very high quercetin content, because quercetin does that too:
Quercetin reduces blood pressure in hypertensive subjects
For more about quercetin, you might like our previous main feature:
Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
Antidiabetic
It also has been found to lower fasting blood sugar levels by 13.5%:
Anti-arsenic?
We put a question mark there, because studies into this have only been done with non-human animals such as mice and rats so far, largely because there are not many human volunteers willing to sign up for arsenic poisoning (and no ethics board would pass it anyway).
However, as arsenic contamination in some foods (such as rice) is a big concern, this is very promising. Here are some example studies, with mice and rats respectively:
- Protective effects of Moringa oleifera Lam. leaves against arsenic-induced toxicity in mice
- Therapeutic effects of Moringa oleifera on arsenic-induced toxicity in rats
Is it safe?
A popular food product through parts of Africa and (especially) South & West Asia, it has a very good safety profile. Generally the only health-related criticism of it is that it contains some anti-nutrients (that hinder bioavailability of its nutrients), but the nutrients outweigh the antinutrients sufficiently to render this a trifling trivium.
In short: as ever, do check with your doctor/pharmacist to be sure, but in general terms, this is about as safe as most vegan whole foods; it just happens to also be something of a superfood, which puts it into the βnutraceuticalβ category. See also:
Review of the Safety and Efficacy of Moringa oleifera
Want to try some?
We donβt sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon π
Enjoy!
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The CBT Workbook for Mental Health β by Dr. Simon Rego & Sarah Fader
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We have often reviewed psychology books here with a note saying “and no, it’s not just a book of the standard CBT techniques that you probably already know”.
So today, this one’s for anyone who was ever thinking “but I don’t know the standard CBT techniques and I would like to know them!”.
The authors outline specific solutions to many common quantifiable problems, with simple exercises that are well-explained and easy to implement.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is not a panacea, but for the things it can be used for, it’s very effective and is a very good “first thing to reach for” to see if it works, because its success rate for a lot of problems is very high.
What kinds of things is this book most likely to help with? A lot of common forms of stress, anxiety, self-esteem issues, cravings, shame, and relationship issues. Other things too, but we can’t list everything and that list already covers a lot of very high-incidence stuff.
Bottom line: if CBT isn’t something already in your toolbox, this book will help you add all its best tips and tricks.
Click here to check out The CBT Workbook for Mental Health, and get tooled up!
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