Produce Your Own No-Bullshit-Bulletproof Frying Oil W/ the Right Herbals: Sage & Rosemary Work Best! + Rosmarinic Acid As Potent as Metformin - Anti-Diabetes & Add. Benefits

Rosemary and Garlic Steak - This is only one out of thousand recipes you will find all over the Internet that inform you how to use rosemary and reap (some) of the health benefits (thing about dosage for taste vs. for medical effects) I am about to outline in todoay's SuppVersity article.

I know that I still owe you the 2nd par of the "Perfect Frying Oil" series, and I promise I will write it as soon as I have found convincing evidence to argue that there actually is a "perfect frying oil". In the mean time, I'd suggest you focus on the "tricks" I am about to reveal in today's SuppVersity article and produce your own no-bullshit-bulletproof frying oil by adding... no, not butter and coconut oil, but sage, thyme, and rosemary.

If you belong to the extremely studious 10% of the SuppVersity students, you will probably remember that you can easily produce an anti-bacterial marinade based on green tea, lemon and turmeric (read more). If you put this "no-bullshit-bulletproof" marinade on your meats and fry them in oil you've made "no-bullshit-bulletproof" with sage, thyme, or rosemary that would be truly bulletproof ;-)

You can learn more about potential negative sides of too many / the wrong antioxidants:

NAC = GSH ￪, Anabolism ￬

Too Much "Vit C" For Gains?

Protein requ. of athletes

Block inflamma- tion, choke fire

C + E Get Avg. Joes Ripped

ROS Management Not Eradication

But enough of the sarcasm for today. A recent study from the Faculty of Agriculture at the South Valley University does in fact confirm that adding sage, thyme or rosemary to a commercially (canola based) frying oil can more than double its induction period, i.e. the time it takes until the oil is literally inedible ... and profoundly unhealthy.

Figure 1: Oxidation stability (y-axis) of refined rapeseed oil treated w/ different herbs during frying for 0-32h (Taha. 2014).

As you can see in Figure 1 thyme and rosemary, or "Rosmarinus officinalis", as the science geeks would say, are the most potent of the three additives. With an increase of approx. 63% over that of pure rapeseed oil (the North American SuppVersity readers know "rapeseed" as "Canola oil", which is actually a special, mostly GMO variety of rapeseed oil - of which you can expect that it will react similar - unless it's the "high MUFA" version, in that case I would expect increases but by no means as pronounced increases in oxidative stability).

Accordingly, both, the rosemary and sage enhanced oils retained a significant albeit highly reduced alpha- and gamma-tocopherol content even after 32h of frying, while the control oil and the thyme-enhanced oil lost all its vitamin E after only ~14h and ~29h of frying, respectively.

There's one "on the other hand": You will probably know by now, that there no SuppVersity article with a simplified bottom line that does not at least mention the "other hands", i.e. things you should keep in mind, when reading the bottom line. For the study at hand this is the increase in free fatty acids with frying time. This is another, albeit very unspecific marker of the deterioration of a given oil during the frying process. In view of the superior outcome for both the oxidative stability, as well as the reduced depletion of tocopherols (vitamins E) I will still whole-heartedly conclude that adding sage and especially rosemary to your oils is a good idea.

Although both will work, there are a couple of things that speak in favor of rosemary, which are not directly related to the results Taha et al. (2014) present in their latest study. If you look at the results of a recent study from the University of Madras, for example you will see that rosmarinic acid, one of the major active ingredients in rosemary will also have protective effect on your glucose and lipid metabolism (Jayanthy. 2014).

In said study, the provision of 100mg/kg of rosmarinic acid (human equivalent: 8mg/kg) reverted almost all of the detrimental changes in liver and glucose metabolism in a rodent model of diet-induced diabetes. And as the authors point out, the obtained results were almost comprable to those of the anti-diabetes drug, metformin (see Figure 2).

Rosemarinic acid is on par with metformin!

Noot bad, given the fact that the same compound from the fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers of the perennial shrub from the Mediterranean has a whole host of additional benefits. It...

Figure 2: Effect of Rosmarinic acid (100mg/kg | human equivalent: 16mg/kg) and metformin (200mg/kg | human equ.: 32mg/kg) on the insulin sensitivity in a rodent model of experimental diabetes (Jayanthy. 2014)

• inhibits seasonal allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in humans (Takano. 2004) and the immune over-reaction to mite allergens (Sanbongi. 2004).
• has potent (in-vitro) anti-Parkinson's effects (Wang. 2012)
• ameliorates diabetic nephropathy in a rodent model of diabetes (Tavafi. 2011).
• appears to help with arthritis and rheumatoid joint degeneration (Youn. 2003; Khanna. 2007)
• induces apoptosis (cell death) in various cancers, including human colorectal cells (Xavier. 2009)
• has anti-hypertensive and pro-metabolic (glucose + fat metabolism) effects in rodents on high fructose diets (Karthik. 2001)

And that's only the tip of an iceberg, which involves potential beneficial effects on all types of auto-immune diseases and a whole host of other metabolic benefits. In spite of the fact that the rosmarinic acid content of regular rosemary is limited, rosemary is thus one of the herbs you should consider adding to your kitchen cabinet... and frying oils ;-)

Table 1: Total polyphenol (gallic acid equ.) and ORAC (trolox equ.) values of common cullinary herbs (Zheng 2001).

Bottom line: It's funny how many of the common herbs humans all across the world have been using for centuries for culinary reasons turn out to have profound health effects. Rendering frying oils bulletproof with sage, thyme and obviously rosemary is after all only one of the many examples. Making your meats bacteria resistant with green tea, lemon and turmeric is another one, and in the end, even the citric acid + vitamin C people have drizzling on their fish filet for centuries will have beneficial health effects. Fascinating, isn't it? And certainly healthier than butter in a pot of hot coffee ;-)

How to you do it: If you want to do it exactly the way the scientists did it, add 50g of plant material (best freshly grounded!) to 1l of the oil of your choice, stir it for 24h and vacuumfilter the particles afterwards. Then you put it in the fridge and store it there for ~1 week. If you can't filter the oil, use less oil and prepare a fresh concoction every week (e.g. 20g + 400ml oil).

Reference:

• Jayanthy, G., and S. Subramanian. "Rosmarinic acid, a polyphenol, ameliorates hyperglycemia by regulating the key enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism in high fat diet–STZ induced experimental diabetes mellitus." Biomedicine & Preventive Nutrition (2014).
• Khanna, Dinesh, et al. "Natural products as a gold mine for arthritis treatment." Current Opinion in Pharmacology 7.3 (2007): 344-351.
• Sanbongi, C., et al. "Rosmarinic acid in perilla extract inhibits allergic inflammation induced by mite allergen, in a mouse model." Clinical & Experimental Allergy 34.6 (2004): 971-977.
• Taha, Eman, et al. "Stabilization of refined rapeseed oil during deep‐fat frying by selected herbs." European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology (2014).
• Takano, Hirohisa, et al. "Extract of Perilla frutescens enriched for rosmarinic acid, a polyphenolic phytochemical, inhibits seasonal allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in humans." Experimental Biology and Medicine 229.3 (2004): 247-254.
• Tavafi, Majid, et al. "Rosmarinic Acid Ameliorates Diabetic Nephropathy in Uninephrectomized Diabetic Rats." Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences 14.3 (2011).
• Wang, Jieyu, et al. "Neurorescue effect of rosmarinic acid on 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned nigral dopamine neurons in rat model of Parkinson's disease." Journal of molecular Neuroscience 47.1 (2012): 113-119.
• Youn, Jeehee, et al. "Beneficial effects of rosmarinic acid on suppression of collagen induced arthritis." The Journal of rheumatology 30.6 (2003): 1203-1207.
• Xavier, Cristina PR, et al. "Salvia fruticosa, Salvia officinalis, and rosmarinic acid induce apoptosis and inhibit proliferation of human colorectal cell lines: the role in MAPK/ERK pathway." Nutrition and cancer 61.4 (2009): 564-571.
• Zheng, Wei, and Shiow Y. Wang. "Antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds in selected herbs." Journal of Agricultural and Food chemistry 49.11 (2001): 5165-5170.

+76% Testosterone & Protection From Insane Amounts of EMR With Rosmarinic Acid from O. Basilicum, Majoram, Thyme and Several Other Herbs in Your Kitchen Cabinet

Figure 1: O. basilicum extract was the rosmarinic acid (RA) source that was used in the study at hand; other common herbs which contain RA include rosemary (who would have guessed that ;-), Spanish sage, lavender, perilla and lemon balm, majoram, thyme and mint

That I am not a fan of testosterone boosters is probably an "open secret"... specifically in terms of "scientifically proven" ones, without any human data to back their claims and a single rodent study published in the African Journal of Pharmacology to back claims that like "increases lean mass" or "helps you shed body fat" that would not be supported by the study data, anyways... so, just to make sure that you, as a faithful student of the SuppVersity are the first to know about the (I bet) soon to be released "scientifically proven" testosterone booster, I decided to share with you the results of... exactly, one of those rodent studies from the January issue of the African Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology (Khaki. 2012), which would actually not have made it into the news, if it were not for the "ivory tower dose" of EMR the scientists used in this study.

Note: I do not intend to challenge the credibility of this journal or the authors of this study, but I do want to point out that studies into the beneficial effects of "polyphenols" on whatever biological functions do not get published in the influential journals for a good reason: Almost every herb, and I suppose there are millions, will show some sort of anti-oxidant and I would venture the guess, at the right dose, testosterone boosting or inhibiting effects. For the first 1 1/2 months of 2012, the estimated number of papers reporting novel or summarizing old findings on those natural-antioxidants is >1,400 (according to Google Scholar)... so, chances that the next best herb that is growing just before your door is a "potent antioxidant" (at high enough doses) is ~50%, with another 50% chance of associated increases in testosterone, 25% of all herbs are potential testosterone boosters and "scientifically proven" (at least, in supp-company terms) as soon as a single paper with respective data is published.

I guess, now that we have put things in perspective, I can say the magic words that will usually elicit commentaries à la "Where can I get this stuff on the net?" within the next 24h in either the comment area of the respective blogpost or on the SuppVersity's Facebook wall - ready? Then let's go: Treating male Wistar rats with 5mg/kg Rosmaric acid (RA), a polyphenol from herbal plants from the Lamiaceae family, for 40 days increased their total testosterone levels from 1.7 to 2.99ng/ml (+76%)...

Figure 1: Effects of 40-day treatment with unrealistically high amounts of EMR from 80G EMF (50hz), 5mg/kg rosmaric acid from 1.5g/kg O basilico or a combination of both on endocrine function in male Wistar rats (data calculated based on Khaki. 2012)

So, just in case you did not already run to your local GNC to ask the guy/girl at the counter, whether they have rosmaric acid in stock, you may as well be interested to see that the same 5mg/kg RA the rats received in the form of 1.5g/kg body weight O. basilicum extract (you see, you don't even have to go to your GNC for you daily dose of test-boosting herbs ;-) also blunted the -41% reduction in testosterone (cf. figure 1)the scientists induced by exposing the rats to EMF radiation at a completely unrealistic level of 80G - this is way more than 8,000x of what one of those stone-age microwave ovens emits, and another reason why studies like that don't get published in reputable journals.

Figure 2: Intact spermatogonia and spermatocytes in testis of untreated control and after 40-day treatment with unrealistically high amounts of EMR from 80G EMF (50hz), 5mg/kg rosmaric acid from 1.5g/kg O basilico (data calculated based on Khaki. 2012)

In view of the fact that the highest real-world 24h EMF exposure at 50Hz, I could think of would be right beneath a high-voltage powerline, which emits <150mG and thusly still 533x less than the EMF emitting device in the study, at hand, it is highly questionable, how significant the actual data on sperm and testis morphology in the EMF and RA + EMF groups actually is (cf. figure 2). The reason I still included it in this post, is that RA alone led to statistically non-significant, but still measurable improvement in sperm morphology, which could, after all, make the difference for any couple unable to conceive.

This testbooster should already be in your kitchen cabinet, so no reason to go to GNC

If we discard the questionable data on the exorbitant EMF exposure, this study leaves us with yet another "scientifically proven" testosterone booster, the real advantage of which is that it is naturally present not only in O. basilico, an extract of which was used in this study at a human equivalent dose of 243mg/kg body weight, but also in rosemary (who would have guessed that ;-), Spanish sage, lavender, perilla and lemon balm, majoram, thyme and mint - in other words, all those herbs you should have in your kitchen cabinet, anyway. After all, rosmarinic acid has anti-carcinogenic (Vencatachalam. 2012; Encalada. 2012), neuroprotective (Wang. 2012), anti-... ah, just the same effects as about every other polyphenol at the right dose - and did I mention that it is yet another caffeic acid derivate (cf. Caffeic Acid, AMPK and the Weight Loss Effects of Coffee)?