In a world where many think herbal are safe, with no interacts and can be used at will, Raskovic, Milanovici, Pavlovic, Milijasevic, Ubavic, and Mikov (2015) conducted a study to see if there were any interactions between rosemary essential oil and the drugs codeine and paracetamol (acetaminophen) as these can be used to treat renal colic pain, minor muscular pain, minor peripheral circulatory disorders and dysmenorrhea. This experiment involved eight groups with six mice in each group.  The length of the experiment was 7 days.

The control group was given saline. The REO group was given 20 mg/kg of rosemary essential oil. The Cod group was given saline for 7 days and one dose of codeine at the end. The Par group got saline for 7 days with a dose of paracetamol at the end. CodR10 got 10mg/kg of rosemary essential oil for 7 days with a dose of codeine at the end. CodR20 got rosemary essential oil for 7 days with a dose of codeine at the end. ParR10 was treated with rosemary essential oil for 7 days with a dose of paracetamol at the end.  They stated the recommended human dose is 40 mg/day. 

For the induced pain, they used a hot plate and placed each mouse on it and timed how long it took for the mouse to react to the pain caused by the heat. 

The rosemary group performed better than the paracetamol group compared to the placebo group, lasting at least 20 minutes, some as long as 50 minutes. The codeine group lasted the longest in comparison.  The rosemary and paracetamol group pasted 30-50 minutes.  The rosemary and codeine group lasted the longest.  With the rosemary groups combined with a drug, the larger dose performed best. 

The oil the used had 1,8-cineole, camphor, and a-pinene as the main components, what they call the Morocco/Tunisian Type based on the region it comes from. 

The authors concluded rosemary essential oil works in the management of pain and can be combined with other drugs but the correct dose must be determined as rosemary opens the pathways which could exacerbate the hepatotoxic properties of paracetamol, causing damage to one area of the body while trying to treat another.
 
Have a Gteat Day!

Raskovic, A., Milanovici, I., Pavlovic, B., Milijasevic, B., Ubavic, M., and Mikov, M. (2015). Analgesic effects of rosemary essential oil and its interactions with codeine and paracetamol in mice. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, 19: 165-172.

I think it would have been better to put the tomatoes on either side of the front of the greenhouse.  Now I know for next time!

Raskovic, Milanovic, Pavlovic, Cebovic, Vukmirovic, and Mikov (2014) evaluated the effects of rosemary essential oil on liver injury. The injury to the rats was induced using carbon tetrachloride (CCl4).  Instead of ordering the oil they made it in their lab using established procedures (hydrodistillation). 

The rats were divided into 6 groups of six. There were two control groups. One was given a saline solution (CON S) and the other was given one dose 1 milliliter per kilogram of weight of CCl4.  There were two rosemary groups with this same dosage. The dosages for rosemary were 5 and 10 milligrams per kilogram. The other two groups were just given rosemary essential oil at these same doses. 

The rosemary was given via a feeding tube for seven days then the CCl4 was administered. The most prominent constituents of the essential oil were 1,8-cineole, camphor, a-pinene, b-pinene, camphene, and b-caryophyllene.

The rosemary essential oil demonstrated a free radical scavenging property where 77.6 microliters per milliliter achieved 50% effectiveness.  Markers they looked at were malondialdehyde (MDA) and glutathione (GSH) levels as well as catalase (CAT), peroxidase (Px), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and glutathione reductase (GR) activities.  With CCl4, MDA had a 3.5-fold increase. Both groups where the rosemary was introduced before the CCl4 had significantly reduced oxidative stress levels. The authors said the REO10 group was near that of the control. The urea and creatine levels suggested rosemary essential oil repaired some of the damage to the liver excretion function.  

MDA is one of the first indicators that liver function is impaired. Rosemary prevented the increase in MDA. Damaging the liver significantly impaired GSH levels as well. It reduces CAT activity and increases GPx. Rosemary reversed all of the indicators, especially at the higher dose. 

Rosemary essential oil limited cell peroxidation which reduced the damage to the cell membranes. Given the variations in oil composition, the authors can only speak for the composition of the oil tested. Their sample came from Belgrade.

NOTE: One important thing mentioned in this study is the composition of the oil based on the region of origin of the plant.  They named three different regions that, when compared, differed making it important to understand what properties the plant being used have.  This could be vital in regards to people with plant allergies.  They added season of harvest was an important factor.
 
Have a Great Day!

Raskovic, A., Milanovic, I., Pavlovic, N., Cebovic, T., Vukmirovic, S., and Mikov, M. (2014). Antioxidant activity of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) essential oil and its hepatoprotective potential. Complementary and Alternative Medicine 14:225

This one is really long but this study deserved a very detailed look.  I explained my feelings on it at the end.  I started this at 5:30 this morning and am posting it at 2:30 in the afternoon. 

Alfonso, Mara de O Silva, Carvalho, Rivelli, Barros, Rogero, Lottenberg, Torres, and Mancini-Filho (2013) compared two different forms of rosemary extract and their effect on high cholesterol. 

One was a water extract, 20 grams of herb to 100 milliliters of water at room temp for 1 hour.  It was then centrifuged, filtered then 100 milliliters of water added.

The non-estrified phenolic fraction (NEPF)was powdered, defatted leaves. They did this with tetrahydrofuran, 6 one-minute periods of 20ml, at room temperature.  They filtered it with sodium sulfate anhydrous.  They used vacuum evaporation at 30 degrees Celsius. The dried matter was then placed in 5 milliliters of methanol then filtered then the flask was filled to 20 milliliters.  

This study was conducted using 48 mice which were divided into six groups. All groups were fed a high cholesterol (HC) diet except the control group.  The HC group received distilled water. 

There were two water extract groups. One was treated with 70 milligrams of the extract per kilogram of body weight per day, the other with 140 (AQ 70 and 140).  The other extract was given to the last two groups at 7 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day and 14. 

When they evaluated the phenolic content of the extracts, there was twice as much phenolic compound in the water extract, 15. 67 to 8.59 in the NEPF.  The water extract had 1.87 grams of rosmarinic acid per 100 grams of dry weight.  The NEPF extract had 5.71 grams of carnosic acid per 100 grams of weight. 

The antioxidant activity was ten times higher in the NEPF extract.  The total cholesterol was 39.8% lower in the AQ70 group and the non-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL) was 44.4 % lower.  The higher dosage did not have any significant result in comparison.  The triglyceride levels were higher and the HDL were lower but not significantly.  In the AQ70, the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were reduced from 1.34 to .83 micromoles/milligram.

With NEPF, at 7 and 14 milligrams per kilogram, TBARS in the heart dropped by 24.32% and 16.05 respectively. In renal tissues, levels dropped by 33.61% and 27.29% respectively.  Both rosemary groups showed significant drops in TBARS levels in the brain and liver in comparison with the high cholesterol group. 

In both rosemary extracts, the catalase activity was significantly increased, even higher in the higher dosage groups. For glutathione, the higher dosage of water extract performed the best.  In the kidneys, the NEPF increased catalase and superoxide dismutase activities.  Neither extract helped the catalase and superoxide dismutase activities in the cardiac tissue.

An important note on the catalase activity: The mice fed a high cholesterol diet and no rosemary had poor catalase activity.  Adding the rosemary treatment improved this activity seeming to reverse that negative effect from the diet. This means it seemed to reduce the cardiovascular disease caused by the poor diet by reducing the lipid profile.

            NOTES: I know this is a long one but this is an interesting study that is missing some things.  I want to be fair to it so I’m sharing as much of this data as I can.  The authors say only the water extract significantly reduced total cholesterol and HDL and attributed this to overall phenolic compound levels being more than twice as high in the water extract. 

My issue with this is they don’t break this out in this study, just the rosmarinic acid for the water extract and the carnosic acid for the NEPF extract. This leaves the question of what were the other compounds and how much of each was in each extract.  I also don’t like how they provide numbers in some comparisons and percentages in others which doesn’t provide a “fair” comparison between these two groups unless you can see the graphs they include in the study.  As an analyst, I start questioning why the numbers are not presented in the same form when doing comparisons. 

I do think this form of study is vital, in that the readers need to understand there is a reason to use different types of extraction methods.  When you can see the differences in effectiveness for different issues, it helps bring this concept home.  It helps to understand why we use teas, infusions, decoctions, tinctures and other methods of use, often different methods for each herb. 
 
Have a Great Day!

Alfonso, M. S., Mara de O Silva, A., Carvalho, E. B. T., Rivelli, D. P., Barros, S. B. M., Rogero, M. M., Lottenberg, A. M., Torres, R. P., and Mancini-Filho, J. (2013). Phenolic compounds from Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) attenuate oxidative stress and reduce blood cholesterol concentrations in diet-induced hypercholesterolemic rats. Nutrition and Metabolism, 10:19.

I confess, when I first opened this article, I thought there was NO way this herb would be effective here and they killed these poor rats for nothing.  I am now humbled after fully reading this article.  Such a detailed study!

Ashtiyani, Zohrabi, Hassanpoor, Hosseini, and Hajihashemi (2013) tested a water-extract of rosemary in a study using 40 rats, 10 per group to investigate the effectiveness of rosemary in treating kidney failure.  The authors said the most common cause of kidney failure is renal ischemia which can be caused by vasoconstriction. Decline in kidney function results in the buildup of nitrogen waste and the increase of blood urea and creatinine.

Two of the groups were given rosemary for 1 week, one of these groups underwent renal failure by an induced ischema-reperfusion. One group was given reperfusion with saline over the same period. 

The water extract was created by coarsely grinding fresh herb and putting 8 grams of herb in 100 milliliters of water.  It was boiled for 5 minutes and infused for 10.  The rats were given 10 milliliters per kilogram of weight per day through a feeding tube.

In the rosemary group, there was a 86% decrease in creatinine clearance, 34% decrease in urine osmolarity, 39% decrease in erythrocytes inside the glomeruli, and 35% decrease in absolute urinary excretion of potassium. There were increases in levels of plasma creatinine, BUN, absolute levels of sodium urinary excretion, fractional sodium urinary excretion, and fractional potassium urinary excretion.  This is in comparison to the sham group that was given rosemary but not the reperfusion. 

Compared to the other group that was given the reperfusion, the rosemary group had a 71% decrease in plasma creatinine, decrease in BUN by 48%, decrease in absolute urinary sodium excretion by 74%, decrease in fractional sodium excretion by 94%, decrease in fractional potassium excretion by 56% and a significant decrease in malondialdehyde.  There were significant increases in erythrocytes in glomeruli, absolute urinary potassium excretion, creatinine clearance and ferric-reducing antioxidant capability. 

In the degradation of the kidneys comparison, the rosemary group did incredibly well.  The authors used a grading system with zero being not present and 5 being 80-100% present.  The reperfusion group got a 3 in increase in Bowman space, a 4 in vascular congestion, cell exfoliation got a 4, and a 4 in proteinaceous casts.  In the rosemary group, Bowman space got a 1, vascular congestion scored a 2, cell exfoliation got a 2, and proteinaceous casts got a 1.

The results indicate the rosemary group had better blood flow than the reperfusion group.  This demonstrates the anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic abilities of the herb. The rosemary group also had significant decrease in cellular damage and functionality.
 
Have a Great Day!

Ashtiyani, S. C., Zohrabi, M., Hassanpoor, A., Hosseini, N., and Hajihashemi, S. (2013). Oral Administration of the Aqueous Extract of Rosmarinus Officinalis in Rats Before Renal Reperfusion Injury. Iranian Journal of Kidney Diseases, 7(5).

Gauch, Silveira-Gomes, Esteves, Pedrosa, Gurgel, Arruda, and Marques-de-Silva (2013) collected the dentures of 10 people and retrieved samples of Candida albicans from them. The intent was to see if rosemary essential oil would have an effect against this fungus.  Four sets of dentures had Type I and four had Type II.  The other two didn’t have any. 

No matter the type of C. albicans tested, when 4% rosemary oil was added, germ tube formation was completely inhibited.
 
Gauch, L. M. R., Silveira-Gomes, F., Esteves, R. A., Pedrosa, S. S., Gurgel, E. S. C., Arruda, A. C., and Marques-de-Silva, S. H. (2013). Effects of Rosmarinus offi cinalis essential oil on germ tube formation by Candida albicans isolated from denture wearers. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical 47(3):389-391. doi: 10.1590/0037-8682-0137-2013

Shin, Choi, Ryu, Lee, Kim, Choi, Chang, Lee, Jang, and Inn (2013) conducted a study testing the effectiveness of carnosic acid in treating human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV).  At the time of the study, there was no vaccine and no effective study.  They tested three herbs, the other two were not very effective against hRSV so they just used rosemary in this study.  They extracted carnosic acid, rosmarinic acid, and butalinic acid but focused the study on carnosic acid.  They also determined carnosol has no effect on hRSV.  The authors also evaluated cytotoxicity and determined there was minimal cell degradation due to toxicity. 

The results using carnosic acid against hRSV were effective.  After two days at a dose of 20 micrograms per milliliter, the virus had reduced by 26-fold.  At a dose of 50 midcr50 micrograms the number had risen to 1160-fold.  After four days at the 50 dose, there was no virus remaining. It was effective against both a and b type hRSV viruses.  However effective this was against hRSV, they tested it against the flu and had no effect suggesting it has a very specific way of working against some viruses.  Treatment 8 and 12 hours after infection were still effective at 70% and 50%.  

They also tested using pretreatment and the results suggested carnosic acid may inhibit hRSV infection.  While they still do not fully understand how it works, they think because it was ineffective against influenza A, it must attack the virus itself rather than protect the host cells.  For this same reason, they believe it does not attack the RNA of a virus.  The current thinking it is works against proteins which inhibits RNA synthesis.
 
Shin, H., Choi, M. Ryu, B., Lee, N., Kim, H., Choi, H., Chang, J., Lee, K. T., Jang, D. S., and Inn, K. (2013). Antiviral activity of carnosic acid against respiratory syncytial virus.  Virology Journal, 10:303.

Zhao, Lee, Ma, Huang, Sun, Li, Chen, and Niu (2012) studied the effects of carnosol, an antioxidant on estrogen receptors. This is an attempt to find a solution to postmenopausal cardiovascular symptoms that do not bear a cancer-causing risk such as hormone replacement therapy.

Estrogen receptor a played a bigger role in this study that estrogen receptor b but it was clear that carnosol was effective overall in this study.  Carnasol played a significant role in reducing induced oxidative stress in a vascoprotective way.  Meaning, it prevented cell death caused by oxidative stress.  It displayed phytoestrogenic activity in BAECs. 

The estrogen receptors have also demonstrated antioxidant properties, especially estrogen receptor a which inhibited some of the carnosol activity. This study showed carnosol used the estrogen receptor pathway to exert its antioxidative properties.  However, the binding ability is different due to the structure of the phytoestrogen cells.  When the cells were pretreated with carnosol 24 hours prior to induced oxidative stress, the cardiovascular cells were not damaged by the oxidative stress. 

The authors of the study say there are existing studies which indicate daily intake if carnasol in animals is well tolerated.
 
Have a Great Day!
 
Zhao, P., Lee, D. Y., Ma, Z., Huang, L., Sun, L., Li, Y., Chen, J., and Niu, J. (2012). The Antioxidant Effect of Carnosol in Bovine Aortic Endothelial Cells Is Mainly Mediated via Estrogen Receptor α Pathway. Biological Pharmacological Bulletin, 35(11):1947–1955

This constituent isn't really "new" but it was not listed in any of the books I used as sources so I do not have it defined in my constituent list nor is it listed in my rosemary herbarium yet.

Miyazawa, Sugie, and Shindo (2002) looked at the biotransformation of the constituent verbenone which is found is the essential oil of rosemary.  In the study they were able to determine it transforms into a metabolite called 10-hydroxyverbenone.  The authors conclude the study with indicating further studies were underway on this topic.

Have a Great Day!
 
Miyazawa, M., Sugie, A., and Shindo, M. (2002). Biotransformation of Verbenone by Human Liver Microsomes. Bioscience, Biotechnology and Biochemistry, 66(11): 2458-2460.

Vicente, Martin, Garcia-Risco, Fornari, and Reglero (2012) examined the extraction of rosemary’s antioxidant constituents using carbon dioxide and combing them with sunflower oil, linseed oil and grapeseed oil to determine if there was any effect on the antioxidant ability of the rosemary constituents. 

They determined if ethanol is not used with the carbon dioxide extraction process, the antioxidant ability is greatly reduced. No matter which method, with or without ethanol, the linseed oil had the most carnasol and carnosic acid, increasing as the dosage increased, The grapeseed oil had the least.

The interesting part the authors noted was the linseed oil without the rosemary was the most likely to oxidize. There was a direct relationship to the amount of PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acids) to the likelihood of susceptibility of oxidation. 

The sunflower oil had the least PUFA and was in between the other two oils in terms of absorption of the rosemary constituents. Linseed oil had the most PUFA and absorbed the most. Grapeseed oil was the middle on PUFA but the last on absorption.

The authors are now wondering if the composition of the PUFA is the cause of oxidation.  Linseed oil was 43% linolenic acid (Omega-3) and 19% linoleic acid (Omega-6). Grapeseed oil had 68% linoleic acid, and Sunflower oil had 44% linoleic acid. They also are wondering if the position of the double bonds has an effect. Constituents which are a natural part of the original oils may also play a role.
 
Have a Great Day!

Vicente, G., Martin, D., Garcia-Risco, M. R., Fornari, T., and Reglero, G. (2012). Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction of Antioxidants from Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) Leaves for Use in Edible Vegetable Oils. Journal of Oleo Science, 61(12):689-697.