Do bee-related products really have health or therapeutic effects?

Beekeeping, as a traditional agricultural product in my country, not only has many beekeepers taking it as their lifelong career, but also many authoritative institutions and scientific researchers are devoted to the research of bee-related products, such as the Bee Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and bee research institutions in various provinces.

Of course, there are also many netizens asking, "Do honey, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis have health or therapeutic functions?" I can tell you for sure that they are of course effective.

In recent years, thanks to the efforts of many scientific researchers, research on honey, propolis and royal jelly has been extensive, including SCI journal papers and academic monographs published in various fields. It can be seen that these bee-related products still have relatively definite conclusions and effects. Let's talk about them today.

01. Uses of bee products in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia

"Chinese Pharmacopoeia": Bee products are both edible and medicinal.

In fact, bee-related products are both edible and medicinal. Taking the Chinese Pharmacopoeia as an example, honey, propolis, royal jelly, and pollen have been included in the Pharmacopoeia. In the Pharmacopoeia, the above four honey products are described in detail:

▲The Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Chinese Pharmacopoeia") is the legal basis that should be followed in the research, production, operation, use and supervision and management of drugs.

According to the pharmacopoeia, we can see that bee products have certain medicinal value.

Of course, these descriptions may be more traditional Chinese medicine, such as the description of the effects of honey as "tonifying the middle, moisturizing, relieving pain, detoxifying", etc. Next, let's take a look at what effects bee products have from a modern scientific perspective.

02. Modern scientific evidence

Modern science proves that bee products are extremely rich in nutritional value.

In the spirit of scientific exploration, I have searched a lot of research materials. Bee products are generally divided into three categories:

Category 1: Products whose main ingredients are things collected by bees in the wild, such as honey, pollen and propolis.

Category 2: Secreted by the bees’ own glands, such as royal jelly, beeswax, and bee venom.

Category 3: The body of a bee that grows and develops into an adult, such as a bee pupa.

The first category is the most common bee products, among which honey and pollen are similar, but the effects of different honeys and pollens are different. This difference mainly depends on the source of the plants collected by the bees. As we all know, plants are an important resource library of medicines and have the properties of medicines.

Honey is the most familiar product to the public. Its main components are fructose and glucose, which is why honey tastes sweet. The various effects of honey mainly come from other ingredients in honey, such as vitamins, certain mineral components, and of course, more than 20 kinds of natural amino acids.

Currently, honey has become one of the most common nutritional supplements, but honey mainly exists in daily life as food, such as the honey grapefruit tea that everyone is familiar with.

The nutritional components of pollen are extremely complex. There are more than 200 known nutrients, including proteins, amino acids, enzymes and coenzymes, vitamins and trace elements.

Since its efficacy is closely related to its source (the type of pollen is mainly related to the source of the pollen, the efficacy of the pollen varies depending on the nectar source and the type of pollen), I will not elaborate on the evidence here.

There are too many answers about royal jelly on the Internet, so I won't go into details. There is another one, which is propolis, which I will talk about specifically.

03. Propolis

Propolis is more interesting. It is a common nutritional supplement. It is a substance that is relatively unfamiliar to the public, but has attracted much attention from scientific researchers. Propolis, in layman's terms, is a component of the honeycomb. It is a sticky solid colloid with an aromatic smell that is made by bees collecting resin from plant spores or tree trunks and mixing it with their palatine gland secretions, beeswax and a small amount of pollen through chewing. The special feature of propolis is that it has a natural protective and barrier effect, which has a significant effect on maintaining the health of the bee colony and inhibiting the growth of pathogenic microorganisms**. **

Therefore, many scientific researchers have conducted in-depth research on propolis and found that its main ingredients are as follows:

1) Artepillin C: The main chemical component is p-hydroxycinnamic acid, which is one of the most important phenolic compounds in propolis. It has extremely strong bactericidal, anti-inflammatory and immune-enhancing effects.

On the one hand, it can inhibit the inflammatory response by reducing inflammatory factors such as IL-β, IL-3, 4, and 5. On the other hand, it can inhibit oxidative stressors such as ROS, thereby reducing oxidative damage. In addition, it can also inhibit the production of prostaglandin E2 and relieve inflammation (1).

2) Flavonoids: Another important compound in propolis, belonging to the class of polyphenols, which also have the function of inhibiting inflammation and killing microorganisms.

This class of compounds is widespread in the plant kingdom and is collected by bees during their foraging journeys and then incorporated into propolis, which makes up the honeycomb (2).

All of the above substances are important factors in maintaining the health of the beehive, and are also an important prerequisite for the bee colony to gain survival advantages in nature.

04. How to choose propolis products

There are many propolis products on the market. How should we choose?

Propolis is available in the market as a nutritional supplement. Major e-commerce and supermarkets have a large number of related products, and the sales volume is not low. So how should we choose and buy it? Here, it is recommended to select it by yourself through the following points:

1) Check the product batch number and the blue hat logo.

Each health food only has one approval number. If you are not sure whether the label is reliable, it is recommended to log in to the data query column of the National Medical Products Administration website to check.

2) Look at the ingredient list.

Flavonoids are an important indicator for evaluating the quality of propolis and are also the main identification component for distinguishing the quality of propolis. It is recommended that you make a reasonable choice according to your own needs. However, due to the different sources of propolis, the content of flavonoids will also be slightly different. For example, the national standard content is 12%.

3) Look at the production area.

The main purpose of comparing propolis production areas is to compare the content of atespirin C in propolis. The atespirin C content of propolis from different production areas will also vary.

4) Look at the color.

The basic color of propolis is generally yellow-brown, but due to different production areas, different resin collection, different collection seasons, etc., the color of propolis will also vary slightly, ranging from yellow-brown, yellow-green to dark green.

5) Smell the smell.

In addition, propolis has a unique aromatic smell, and the aroma of propolis tends to increase as the temperature rises.

Regarding this type of product, my consistent view is to be consistent with GB16740-97 "General Standard for Health (Functional) Foods": Health (functional) food is a type of food that has the common properties of general food, can regulate the functions of the human body, and is suitable for consumption by specific groups of people, but is not intended to treat diseases.

So when you buy, please keep a basic understanding, that is: it is not for the purpose of curing diseases**.

References:

(1) Kimoto, T. et al. Apoptosis of human leukemia cells induced by Artepillin C, an active

(2) ingredient of Brazilian propolis. Anticancer research 21, 221-228 (2001) Zhishen J. et al. The determination of flavonoid contents in mulberry and their scavenging effects on superoxide radicals[J]. Food chemistry, 1999, 64(4): 555-559.

(3) Wu Jianquan, Guo Changjiang. Comparison of propolis components from different origins. Chinese Food and Nutrition, 2013, 19(7): 62-65.