Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Honey isn't the only bee product that has excited interest over time for its potentially medicinal properties.

Bee venom, bee pollen (flower pollen that bees collect), royal jelly (a substance secreted from the glands of worker bees) and propolis (a tree resin that bees use to seal their hives) are all widely touted on the Web as "natural" therapeutic substances, said by their vendors to treat everything from rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis to anxiety and sexual disorders.

But while scientific evidence for the use of honey to dress wounds is growing, research supporting claims for other bee products is largely lacking.

All fall under the rubric of apitherapy -- the medicinal use of bee products -- and comprise a durable niche of alternative medicine. The word derives from the Latin name Apis mellifera (literally, honey-carrying bee), for the Western honeybee. When 18th-century Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, who coined the term, discovered it was a misnomer -- bees carry nectar and produce honey -- he tried to change it, but the name stuck.

Some claims of benefit date to ancient times. But the dangers are real, too. In some people, exposure to bee venom (whether through bee stings or extracts) can cause anaphylaxis, a sometimes-fatal allergic reaction. Bee pollen and royal jelly can also provoke dangerous reactions, from asthma to anaphylaxis, according to Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist who operates Quackwatch, a Web site that explores questionable and fraudulent health claims.

Here is a brief look at a few conditions for which apitherapy has been touted, and what research shows:

· Arthritis, Gout"It's been said that beekeepers don't get arthritis," says Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor in the department of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine and an expert in alternative medicine. "Some arthritis sufferers will have bee-sting therapy. It's usually an informal arrangement made with beekeepers. . . . It's often done secretly. . . . Beekeepers are not supposed to be treating people for diseases." But the benefit some people have claimed has not been proved.

· Multiple Sclerosis A tiny preliminary study published in 2005 allowed the possibility of benefit for some of the nine participants who had increasing strengths of a venom extract injected into their skin.

But findings in one of the very few controlled studies involving MS patients and bee venom were far from conclusive, said Joseph Bellanti, a professor of pediatrics and microbiology-immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center and one of the study's authors. "We don't recommend this kind of therapy," he said. "Certainly, we don't recommend stinging-insect therapy."

· High Cholesterol Some small studies that seem to show a cholesterol-lowering benefit from royal jelly are of poor quality, says Fugh-Berman, who regards bee jelly as the least likely of bee products to have medical potential, despite what she calls its "magical aura" and high price (up to $10 an ounce).

· Athletic Performance"The few studies that have been done to test [the effect of bee pollen] on athletic performance have shown no benefit," writes Barrett on Quackwatch.

· Seasonal Allergies Fugh-Berman sometimes advises people with pollen allergies to take a couple of tablespoons a day of local honey starting a few months before pollen season. "Honey will have pollen in it. It's kind of a crude form of immunotherapy," she says, adding that "there are no controlled studies that I know of, but there's a decent physiologic basis for that. It might be the same kind of mechanism as allergy shots."

-- Susan Morse