Giloy and Tulsi Immunity Blend

Giloy is Tinospora cordifolia (Willd.) Miers, family Menispermaceae, known in the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India as Guduchi, and the official drug is the dried mature stem, not the leaf and not the root. Tulsi is Ocimum tenuiflorum L., long written as Ocimum sanctum L. and still catalogued that way in trade, family Lamiaceae, used as leaf or aerial parts. The two are standardised on different chemistry. The giloy extract is set against bitters, the clerodane diterpenoid lactone fraction that the stem carries, at a minimum of 2.5 percent; the tulsi extract is set against ursolic acid, C30H48O3, molecular weight 456.7, commonly at 2.5 percent by HPLC, with the leaf volatile fraction dominated by eugenol whose level varies widely by chemotype and origin. Species authentication is the part of this product that deserves the most attention from a buyer. Tinospora crispa has similar leaves, is not a drug of the Ayurvedic classics, and has been associated with reports of liver injury; a run of case reports attributed to giloy has been argued in the Indian literature to rest on misidentified material. We authenticate the stem by pharmacognostic examination and HPTLC fingerprint, with DNA barcoding available on request, and the certificate names the species tested rather than the species ordered. Stem material is bought against a documented supply chain, not from open trade lots, for the same reason. The blend ships in two formats and they are different products commercially. The tablet is a compressed 500 mg or 750 mg unit, uncoated or film-coated, built from the two standardised extracts with the herb ratio set at the brief stage; it travels well and suits export retail. The juice is pressed or reconstituted at single or double strength, olive-brown, naturally bitter, with sediment that settles and needs a shake-before-use instruction, and it is the format Indian domestic buyers usually ask for. Both are vegan and carry no milk, egg, soy, fish, crustacean, gluten, peanut or tree nut material. One regulatory note worth checking before an Indian food-supplement launch: Ocimum tenuiflorum and Ocimum sanctum, aerial parts and seed extract, appear on the FSSAI nutraceutical schedule of molecules, isolates and extracts, while Tinospora cordifolia does not appear on that same list and is handled under the plants and botanicals route, so confirm the current schedule entry for the giloy component with your regulatory consultant.