Posts Tagged ‘royal jelly’
September 26th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Magic foods are magical because of the chemicals they contain. What chemicals give honey and royal jelly, products of the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) hard work, their power? honey and royal jelly have been used for millennia to help with wound healing.Historically, honeybee products, such as honey and royal jelly, have been used to treat injuries. Before sulfonamides and other antibiotics, which were discovered in the XX century, that’s all there was: natural products that had antibacterial or antifungal activity. Royal jelly is secreted by worker bees’ hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands, which is then used to nourish the larvae. Royal jelly has antimicrobial and immunomodulatory properties and also has…
April 16th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Those “miracle” natural substances that people have been using for centuries or even millennia are useful because of the chemicals they contain. Sometimes, the stories are not true and there is nothing beneficial in those false miracle products. But when they effectively treat a human (or animal) condition, biochemists and phytochemists will work hard to identify the chemicals that confer the natural substance its power. The process is hard and time-consuming, but eventually, we find the key chemical. Sometimes, there is more than just one active chemical, like it’s the case of tea leaves (EGCG, caffeine). It gets even more interesting when the biochemist finds the mechanism of action. Finding…