Bee Propolis Synergisitc HEALTHCARE for the 21st Centruy

For well over a hundred years modern science has progressed at a startling rate. With this particular increase in knowledge has come medicinal and healthcare benefits which have seen ages peak and diseases eradicated. These medical advances were based around the paradigm of the "magic bullet", isolating the active component and using it to improve the chemistry of a single molecule/protein to elicit a big change of state in the individual. Success however has turned to obsession as cracks come in the armoury of disease fighting drugs at our disposal. MRSA is rifling through our hospitals as antibiotics become ineffective and severe unwanted effects of modern drugs are becoming common place now years after their introduction. A direct consequence of a one dimensional strategy, it is maybe enough time to acknowledge the synergistic health advantages of natural medicine.

Propolis is a unique natural medicine due to its breadth of action. It has antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and immunomodulatory effects, it could help treat asthma, allergies, arthritis and joint disorders, eczema and dermatitis, ME, viral infections including HIV and even cancer. This medicine may help treat an illness or keep you healthy.

Propolis: Defender of the City

Propolis is really a mainly resinous substance that bees collect from trees and plants. Being made up of waxes, resins, fatty acids and even amino acids. Aristotle reputedly coined the name Propolis meaning "defender of the city". This is just what Propolis is for the hive, it acts as a bee population's external immune system keeping the hive sterile and free from microbial invaders

Evidence Based Medicine

In this posting I will describe for you the pharmacological properties of Propolis. Before I do therefore i must explain where this evidence comes from. All the properties and actions of Propolis have been witnessed and detailed in scientific studies that have subsequently been published in journals. The bulk of these scientific studies have been performed in vitro (i.e. in a test tube) or in vivo (i.e. in a bunch animal for instance rats), a much smaller proportion of these studies are clinical trials tested on humans. The abstracts of these papers are available on the Medline and pubmed databases on the web.

Propolis: A natural antibiotic

Propolis is probably most widely known because of its antibiotic properties. Even as early as 1960 French1 research demonstrated the bacteriostatic action on Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris and Bacillus alvei. The outcomes have been replicated often and Propolis has even been shown to be effective to MRSA2, exactly the same antibiotic resistant bacteria that has infected around 70% of our hospitals. A 1997 study by Calder et al. at the University of Oxford concurred with one of these results and found that the cinnaminic acids and flavanoids within Propolis in particular show bacteriocidal action. This step believed to be as a consequence of Propolis uncoupling the bacterial energy respiratory chain. Interestingly this action may be involved in a synergistic action with antibiotics when used together, boosting the effectiveness of the drugs.

Anti-Viral and immuno-stimulatory

Viruses present a unique dilemma in the quest for good health, they're not affected by antibiotics and mutate so frequently that vaccines are hard to create. In addition they cause illness by hijacking cells and using the cells machinery to replicate. Modern drugs try to slow or stop the virus from the replicating and subsequently because they're attacking host cell machinery they have certain unwanted effects. Viruses perhaps pose the greatest threat to humans' health, we have been currently in the middle of a HIV pandemic with "39.4 million" people infected world wide. With a Flu pandemic overdue and certainly coming and predictions of globally casualties and chaos, a remedy is needed.

The bioflavanoids in propolis have a unique method of combating Viruses, rather than trying to combat them once they have infected a cell, they lock the virus in its protein coat. This means that the dangerous machinery and DNA/RNA of the virus is nullified and the infection stopped.

Propolis has been proven to become more effective than the pharmaceutical anti-viral acyclovir in treating genital Herpes in a clinical trial conducted in the Ukraine4 and there's growing evidence that Propolis may help treat people who have HIV5.

Propolis also works hard as an immunomodulator that is of interest for all those. It does this by altering the way cytokine production and release is managed. Cytokines are the chemical messengers that allow disease fighting capability cells to communicate. By altering the cytokine system, it primes the immune system to prepare yourself to respond to antigens quickly and effectively.

As well as this, bioflavanoids within Propolis stimulate the production of interferon which can help people recover from ME, stimulating their immune system. This alteration of the cytokine and interferon systems implies that your body is preparing to fight off infection and keep you healthy, creating a case for using propolis as a supplement once and for all health, like vitamins. Prevention is better than the cure.

Anti-inflammatory and anti-allergen

A survey of Propolis consumers showed that arthritis was medical problem that Propolis was used to take care of the most. This is due to of the potent anti-inflammatory properties of the propolis constituents specifically CAPE (Caffeic acid Phenyl ester), CAPE has been proven to suppress T cell activation. A paper by Marquez et al in 20046 evaluated this to imply that since T-cells play a key role in the onset of several inflammatory diseases, CAPE is essential as the this phenolic compound is a potent inhibitor of early and late events in T-cell receptor-mediated T-cell activation. Results like this have led other researchers to propose that CAPE is really a worthwhile agent for reducing the severity of conditions connected with inflammation.

Most of the experiments performed on CAPE were done so in vitro, nevertheless the anti-inflammatory properties of Propolis have already been documented in rats when treating rat adjuvant arthritis. A paper by Park et al in 19997 concluding that the ethanolic extract of propolis had profound anti-inflammatory effects on both chronic and acute arthritic inflammations. These anti-inflammation properties extend to other illness and disorders such as for example asthma and allergies reducing both smooth muscle airway contraction8 and allergic responses. Any disorder or illness linked to inflammation could possibly be helped by Propolis.

Anti-tumour/cancer

Propolis and CAPE have already been shown to reduce the size of tumours also to selectively destroy also to curb the proliferation of malignant cells of many different types of cancer. As recently as June 10th 2005 Cancer researchers have been given a grant of a million dollars to investigate the therapeutic value of Propolis for cancer. Costas Koumenis the lead investigator for the study was quoted as saying, "a very interesting property of the compounds is they have been shown to cause cell death in tumor cells but not in normal cells." This study along with other current studies promises to propel Propolis into the limelight in neuro-scientific cancer treatment.

Current Propolis Research in the UK

BVR (BeeVital Research) recently won a significant government Research and Development Award, part of a �250,000 research programme considering the chemical, biological and clinical properties of propolis.

These studies will focus on the:

1. Documenting the regional variances in chemical and biological properties, by HPLS, GC-MS and NMR. (Occurring at Univeristy of Strathclyde)

2. Futher investigating the role of Propolis in the Hive (University of Gloucester)

3. Dental trials - looking at effectiveness of Propolis for Mouth Ulcers, Pericorinitis, Gingivitis and Sensitive Teeth. (Manchester University Dental school)

4. HIV/AIDS trials - looking at the potency of Propolis with anti-virals in Zambia and Tanzania

5. The effects of standardised propolis on mood, stress, fatigue and cognition at the Human Cognitive Neuroscience Unit at University of Newcastle.

6. To evaluate the usage of local and non - local propolis for wound healing and the treatment of skin and other dermatological problems. ( The Regional Teaching Hospital for University of Dar es Salaam)

How exactly to use/find propolis products?

A large range of propolis products can be found on the market ranging from tablets, capsules, tinctures and liquids to specialist products for skin care - soap, lip balm, creams and teeth's health care - toothpaste, mouthwash , lozenges and tooth and gum liquid.

Traditionally these have been available through health food stores but are increasingly obtainable in independent pharmacies.

Finding the right products is not always easy. Current regulations means manufacturers cannot make any sort of medical claim for products that have not been licensed as medicines despite the fact that t here exists a sound evidence basis for such claims. Section of the reason for this is that no single body is responsible for ensuring that product offered for sale actually are what they state they are.

Because of this the BVR (BeeVital Research) programme is directed at developing full medicines licenses for a few key products. For the time being BVR have formulated a variety of products for medical food market based on their research. Consumers, when purchasing products should look for those products produced by companies who can back up their products by good manufacturing practice (pharmaceutical standard manufacturing ) and research.

References:

(1)Lavie, P. (1960). Annals Abeille, 3: 103-201

(2)Anti-Bacterial properties of propolis. Grange, J. M., Davey, R. W. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 83: 160-1 (1990)

(3)Anti-microbial action of propolis plus some of its components: The result on growth membrane potential and motility of bacteria. Mirzoeva, O. K., Grishanin, r. n., Calder, p. c. microbial - res, 152: 239-246 (1997)

(4)A comparative multi-centre study of the efficacy of propolis, acyclovir and placebo in the treatment of genital herpes (HSV). Vynograd, N.; Vynograd, I.; Sosnowski, Z. Institute of Epidemiology, Lvov State Medical University, Lvov, Ukraine. Phytomedicine (2000), 7(1), 1-6. CODEN: PYTOEY ISSN: 0944-7113.

(5)Current lead natural basic products for the chemotherapy of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. De Clercq, Erik. Rega Institute for Medical Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Louvain, Belg. Medicinal Research Reviews (2000), 20(5), 323-349. CODEN: MRREDD ISSN: 0198-6325

(6)Caffeic acid phenethyl ester inhibits T-cell activation by targeting both nuclear factor of activated T-cells and NF-?B transcription factors. Marquez, Nieves; Sancho, Rocio; Macho, Antonio; Calzado, Marco A.; Fiebich, Bernd L.; Munoz, Eduardo. Departamento de Biologia Celular, Fisiologia e Inmunologia, Universidad de Cordoba, Facultad de Medicina, Cordoba, Spain. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (2004), 308(3), 993-1001. CODEN: JPETAB ISSN: 0022-3565.

(7)Suppressive ramifications of propolis in rat adjuvant arthritis. Park, Eun-Hee; Kahng, Ja-Hoon. College of Pharmacy, Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, S. Korea. Archives of Pharmacal Research (1999), 22(6), 554-558. CODEN: APHRDQ ISSN: 0253-6269.

(8)Bulgarian propolis induces analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects in mice and inhibits in vitro contraction of airway smooth muscle. Paulino, Niraldo; Dantas, Andreia Pires; Bankova, Vassya; Longhi, Daniela Taggliari; Scremin, Amarilis; Lisboa de Castro, Solange; Calixto, Joao Batista. Grupo de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento de Biofarmacos (BIOFAR), Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina, Tubarao, Brazil. Journal of Pharmacological Sciences (Tokyo, Japan) (2003), 93(3), 307-313. CODEN: JPSTGJ ISSN: 1347-8613.

James Fearnley of BeeVital Research is among the worlds leading authorities on Propolis He's got written extensively about them and published a significant review of all of the current research up to 2001 - Bee Propolis � Natural Healing form the Hive Souvenir Press. BeeVital Research info@beevitalpropolis.com