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Antioxidant Potential of Propolis, Bee Pollen, and Royal Jelly: Possible Medical Application
Department of Medical Chemistry, Medical University of Lublin, 4A Chodźki Street, 20-093 Lublin, Poland
Correspondence should be addressed to ; [email protected]
Received 26 January 2018; Revised 25 March 2018; Accepted 2 April 2018; Published 2 May 2018
Academic Editor: Kota V. Ramana
Copyright © 2018 Joanna Kocot et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Honeybees products comprise of numerous substances, including propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly, which have long been known for their medicinal and health-promoting properties. Their wide biological effects have been known and used since antiquity. Bee products are considered to be a potential source of natural antioxidants such as flavonoids, phenolic acids, or terpenoids. Nowadays, the still growing concern in natural substances capable of counteracting the effects of oxidative stress underlying the pathogenesis of numerous diseases, such as neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, diabetes, and atherosclerosis, as well as negative effects of different harmful factors and drugs, is being observed. Having regarded the importance of acquiring drugs from natural sources, this review is aimed at updating the current state of knowledge of antioxidant capacity of selected bee products, namely, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly, and of their potential antioxidant-related therapeutic applications. Moreover, the particular attention has been attributed to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying antioxidant properties of bee products. The influence of bee species, plant origin, geographic location, and seasonality as well as type of extraction solutions on the composition of bee products extracts were also discussed.
1. Introduction
Bee products like propolis, bee wax, pollen, royal jelly, as well as honey had been known and used even in antiquity and the Middle Ages. For example, in ancient China, bee pollen was applied as a cosmetic agent contributing to skin whitening. At present, these substances are applied in a branch of complementary and alternative medicine—apitherapy. Moreover, the interest in their use as agents in the cure of cancers, neurodegenerative, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal tract diseases as well as the treatment of wounds and burns has still been growing [1–10].
Bee products are considered to be a potential source of natural antioxidants capable of counteracting the effects of oxidative stress underlying the pathogenesis of numerous diseases.
In general, the compounds possessing phenolic character, which belong to substances expressing ability to scavenge free radicals, are mainly responsible for bee products’ antioxidant capacity [11–14]. They comprise of two main groups of compounds—flavonoids and phenolic acids [15].
Flavonoids are plant derivatives of polyphenolic structure comprising several subgroups like flavones, flavonols, flavanones flavanonols, flavanols (catechins), anthocyanins, and chalcones, as well as isoflavones and neoflavonoids. The best known subgroups are the compounds containing benzo-γ-pyrone skeleton. Flavonoids often occur in the form of glycosides, in which they play a role of aglycones connected by a glycosidic bond with a carbohydrate group [15–17]. The presence of phenol groups in the molecules of flavonoids imparts them the antiradical activity all the more because the radicals formed during scavenging are resonance stabilized [16]. The examples of flavonoids and their glycosides found in bee products are presented in Figure 1.