Agrawal 1996.

Methods	Crossover design and stratification based on age, fasting blood glucose, and body mass index. Generation of allocation sequence: not stated. Blinding: single blind, person doing measurements and analysis. Sample size estimation: no information. Withdrawal/drop‐out: no.
Participants	Ethnic: Hindu; 40 patients (M/F 25/15; mean age 52.5 (41 ‐ 65 ) years; 20 in herb group; 20 in placebo group). Setting: community clinic. Inclusion criteria: non‐insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) diagnosed by WHO criteria of 1985. Exclusion criteria: patients took holy basil leaves; had blood urea, diarrhoea or dysentery, cancer, 2‐hour postprandial blood glucose > 350 mg/dl, did not like to eat the herb, and juvenile diabetes.
Interventions	Experimental intervention: Holy basil leaves (dried leaf powder in a sachet containing 2.5 g of fresh leaves), in 200 ml water, drink the mixture,daily, for two months. Control intervention: Placebo (spinach leaf powder in a sachet), in 200 ml water, drink daily, for two months. Before starting the interventions, patients were advised not to take any diabetic treatment at least seven days, then followed a run‐in period of 5‐day to wash out the remaining effect of hypoglycaemic drugs.
Outcomes	FBG, PBG, total cholesterol, body weight, and adverse effect. Only data from the first period of trial (before crossover) were used.
Notes	Data from body weight were not available.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Allocation concealment?	Unclear risk	B ‐ Unclear