Tulsi (Holy Basil) for Anxiety
Holy basil (tulsi) shows only a weak, preliminary signal for easing anxiety and stress, and the human evidence is too thin, dated, and low-quality to recommend it as a treatment for anxiety.
Why this grade7-layer evidence engine
Just one trial has tested tulsi directly against diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder (PMID 19253862, 2008): it reported large improvements (p<0.001), but with only 35 participants, no placebo group, and an open-label design, it carries a high risk of bias. A larger, better-designed double-blind RCT (PMID 36185698, 2022, n=100) also found significant gains, but it measured perceived stress on the PSS rather than diagnosed anxiety, and it was industry-funded (Natural Remedies Pty Ltd).
The only review (PMID 28400848, 2017) is a narrative systematic review of 24 mixed studies with no pooled anxiety effect size. No anxiety-specific meta-analysis exists, and not one source reports an effect size, so the magnitude of any benefit cannot be quantified.
No regulator or clinical body endorses tulsi for anxiety: the FDA only lists the plant substance (and has issued warning letters against disease claims), the EU EFSA has its botanical claims on hold, WHO calls the clinical data insufficient, and NIH ODS, Mayo, Cleveland, and Harvard provide no anxiety assessment. Combined with the industry-funding conflict-of-interest flag, this supports a weak (Tier C) grade rather than proven efficacy.
Scoring transparency
All scores computed by a 7-layer evidence engine — fully auditable▸View the full decision path (audit trail)
- compute_raw_score — 加權公式: L2×0.30 + L3×0.25 + L5×0.25 + L11×0.10 + L1×0.10 = 0.551
- tier_from_score — 依分數區間映射至 tier letter
- apply_hec_rules — 高階證據未達主導 (0 positive vs 1 negative)，由 raw_score 決定
- tier_strict_requirement_check — | B→C 因 scope.conflation_risk=true 且 L11 獨評較低 (B7-2 tier cap)
- detect_disputes — 偵測到 0 個 hard + 1 個 soft dispute
- decide_status — 依 tier + dispute 結果決定 status