Royal Jelly Helps Maintain Youthful Skin

This legendary product from the beehive is produced solely for feeding the queen bee. Without it, the queen would be just another bee. In fact, when the eggs hatch, those who are continually fed royal jelly will become queens. Those not fed royal jelly just become worker bees. She is fed royal jelly her entire life, grows 40 - 60% larger and lives about 4 to 6 years, while the worker lives about 6 weeks! Now add to the fact that the queen lays 1-1/2 times her own body weight in eggs a day (about 1,500) and you begin to appreciate this biological marvel!

Royal jelly contains all of the B-complex vitamins, including a high concentration of pantothenic acid (B5) and pyridoxine (B6), and is the only natural source of pure acetylcholine. Royal jelly also contains minerals, vitamins A, C, D and E, enzymes, hormones, 18 amino acids and antibacterial and antibiotic components. It also has an abundance of nucleic acids - DNA and RNA - the genetic code which makes up life. Gelatin, one of the predecessors of collagen, is also found in royal jelly. Collagen is a powerful anti-aging element that helps preserve the youth of the body, particularly the skin.

Many reports have been made, both scientific and anecdotal, regarding the benefits of royal jelly. Royal jelly comes in a variety of forms -- mixed in honey, freeze-dried into capsules and fresh raw, royal jelly. Studies have shown that once royal jelly is harvested, it loses its nutrient quality after 48 hours. That means it is best taken in a freeze-dried condition or suspended in honey, where its nutritional value is preserved. For enhanced effects, you'll also find royal jelly blended into facial creams for direct contact to problem areas.

The use of royal jelly in support of nutritional health is growing. Currently it is used and recommended by physicians in the US, China, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, England, and Russia. It is used for a variety of ailments, ranging from psychological disorders to heart disease.

The usefulness of honey bee products for mankind is based on the same properties that make these products useful for the bees themselves. In the case of propolis these properties extend back beyond the bees to the plants themselves which produce the original resins that bees collected to become propolis. Quite simply, honey is an excellent, stable sweetener and energy source for humans, just as it is for bees; beeswax is a malleable plastic material, that in addition be being an excellent material for molding, burns cleanly; venom is useful because it causes pain and possesses a host of pharmacological activities; propolis is anti-microbial toward bacteria, viruses, fungi, molds, and possesses a multitude of other pharmacological activities; pollen is a phenomenonally nutritious and well-balanced food that can be consumed by people and domestic animals; and royal jelly has a variety of moisturizing, emulsifying and stabilizing properties that make it useful to people.

Royal jelly is a creamy product secreted by young nurse worker bees for feeding to the queen, queen larvae, and other young larvae. It is totally synthesized by the bees in the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands and is derived from the proteins and nutrients in the pollen ingested by the secreting bees. Royal jelly consists of an emulsion of proteins, sugars, and lipids in a water base. The proteins have no particularly unusual properties and have the main presumed function of providing the growing larva or the queen a readily digested source of protein. The remainder of the composition, except the lipids, also appears to be oriented toward providing a balance of nutrients for the consuming individuals. The lipids are unusual because they lack the normal triglycerides and diglycerides that are composed of fatty acids having carbon chains of even numbers from 14 to 20 that are typical of insect fats. Instead royal jelly lipids are composed mostly of short chained 8-10 carbon hydroxy fatty acids or diacids. These compounds have active functionalities at both ends of the molecule, are more soluble in water than usual fatty acids, are highly acidic, and act as good detergents and antimicrobial agents. It is this latter property, antimicrobial activity, that appears to be the main function of the lipids in royal jelly.

For humans, royal jelly possesses the appealing properties of being a creamy emulsion that is strongly antibacterial. These make it an ideal component of cosmetics and skin care products. Internal uses of royal jelly are less promising, as all the antibacterial activities disappear when the pH is raised to above 6 by the natural buffering systems in the body (which maintain a pH of about 7.4). In fact, no clear evidence from controlled experiments exists to support claims of internal usefulness of royal jelly; that in conjunction with the lack of a theoretical chemical basis for activity leads to the conclusion that there is little future promise for pharmaceutical use of royal jelly. Royal jelly is a highly nutritious material. However, its cost precludes its use for any but the most specialized food products for people or animals and its benefits are questionable. Recently, royal jelly has been shown to cause serious reactions, including death, in some individuals who ingest it. This indicates that both more research into the causes of the adverse reactions, and caution in ingesting royal jelly are needed.

"Bee Pollen Great Food -- For Bees," sums up the Food and Drug Administration's position on bee pollen: "Under the law, since the pollen has not been shown to be harmful other than to those suffering allergy, bee pollen may be marketed as a food, provided no nutrition or therapeutic claims are made or implied regarding it. Thus, if the labeling (including pamphlets or advertising associated with the product) does not suggest that it is intended for use other than food, bee pollen marketed as a food need only meet the same general labeling requirements as other foods, and be prepared, packed and held in a sanitary manner." Those who claim bee pollen cures or alleviates any illness or produces therapeutic benefit are promoting the product as a drug. Recently FDA asked that all shipments of a particular product and its promotional literature, advocating use of pollen in this sense, be recalled by the manufacturer. Other steps may also be taken, including seizure, injunction and criminal prosecution. Although this statement refers to pollen, I feel a similar point of view should be held with respect to royal jelly.

Beekeepers can be seduced by schemes that appear to be foolproof at the outset, but when closely investigated, are fraught with problems. In the 1950s, Professor Frank Robinson, now retired, from the University of Florida, saw firsthand the effects of one of these phenomena. At that time, the royal jelly market appeared to explode with possibilities. Profits were high and many beekeepers in search of quick gain borrowed money and converted large portions of their operations to jelly production. The result; the jelly market collapsed, putting many beekeepers out of business and forcing others deep into debt.

Now comes the pollen boom, touted as a can't lose proposition by its promoters. After all, they say, not only is the demand for pollen as human food at an all time high, but also trapping pollen from a colony is beneficial to the bees, reducing swarming while at the same time increasing honey production. Is all of this too good to be true? That's for the beekeeper to decide, but more and more facts come to the fore each day, and all should be carefully studied before a decision is made to go for broke producing bee collected pollen.

Bees are exposed to various bacterial and chemical contaminants that might be incorporated in products for human consumption. Although both bee pollen and royal jelly contain substances with antibiotic properties, both can sustain the growth of disease-causing organisms and neither has practical use as an antibiotic. Contaminants can also be introduced during processing

Bee pollen and royal jelly should be regarded as potentially dangerous because they cause allergic reactions. People allergic to specific pollens have developed asthma, hives, and anaphylactic shock after ingesting pollen or royal jelly. Neurologic and gastrointestinal reactions have also been reported. Some cases of asthma and anaphylaxis have been fatal. The potential for serious reactions is widespread because at least 5% of Americans are allergic to ragweed pollen, and bee pollen contains pollen from ragweed or plants that cross-react with ragweed, such as dandelions, sunflowers, or chrysanthemums. It has been speculated the presence of these allergens might enable regular users to become desensitized (as would happen with allergy shots). However, the odds of this happening are extremely small. Shots deliver the pollen in significant and controllable amounts, whereas bee pollen taken by mouth delivers unpredictable amounts that get digested.

Although honey bees and humans are dramatically different, they share two fundamental features -- both are social animals, and both live in highly complex societies. These features cause both species to maintain more or less permanent residences, to have developed specialized behaviors, to engage in a diversity of activities, and to need for a multitude of materials. Material properties and uses are governed by their chemistry and vice versa. Honey bees need a stable food supply for long-term energy and growth; people likewise need a stable food supply. Honey bees need structural materials such beeswax and propolis to construct their nest; people likewise have housing needs. Honey bees need materials such as propolis and venom to defend against diseases and predators; people have similar needs. Is it any wonder then, that since antiquity, human beings have gone to honey bees as a chemical warehouse of materials and foods. Honey and pollen are the foods that promote health and well being in honey bees. They have served the same function for people. Bees use wax to build their combs and people have taken advantage of the wonderful chemical properties of beeswax to make objects for their homes and daily lives and to coat and preserve materials. Bees use propolis and venom to defend against microorganisms and enemies. People also use propolis, sometimes in conjunction with honey, for its antimicrobial properties. People use the same properties in bee venom that drive off predators of bees to enhance human health by fighting off some of their bodies' own internal enemies that cause autoimmune diseases. Overall, much of the human application of bee products can be explained on the basis of the chemistry of the bee products. This is not to say that bee products should not be used for purposes for which we have no chemical understanding; indeed, the process has usually operated in reverse -- first, people discovered uses for bee products, then later came the chemical understanding of how and why the bee products were useful. Perhaps the message from this is that we should look to traditional uses of bee products to guide us in our investigations and to use research to discover how best to use bee products and their components to improve human life. But for this process to operate, individuals concerned with bee products must be fair and honest in representing the legitimate uses and benefits of the bee products.

See also: Bee Pollen

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