Honey Bees Hold Promise to Fight Cancer, Reduce Aging

Magical royal bee jelly offers promise to fight cancer and acts as an anti-aging and cholesterol-lowering super supplement, said researchers.

Royal jelly also called "bee milk", looks like white snot. Besides water, it also contains a combination of proteins and sugars.

Anti-aging Secrets to a Younger You-Wrinkles Creams-Super Foods-Simple Tips-FAQs
Is there anyone in this world who fails to be swayed by the magic of youth? None, for when youth explodes joyously all Nature smiles!

‘Magical royal bee jelly holds clue to fight cancer.’

The findings showed this "queen magic" affects cell signalling and growth in cancer cells.

However, how this actually happens and its potential benefit to humans, has remained a mystery to scientists.

"The exact structure of the key protein in royal jelly remains unknown. But it is expected to act through the epidermal growth factor (or EGF) receptor -- the main pathway targeted by cancer therapeutics today," Daryl Klein, Assistant Professor at Yale University in Connecticut, US, said in a statement.

Foods to Lower Cholesterol and Heart Disease
Heart diseases are the most common and threatening disease today. It has takes millions of lives all over the world each year and the death count is not going down. Here are tips to a healthy heart.

Klein's lab studies cell signalling, and how these signals can be "tuned" in different ways.

Using commercial jelly shipped from China, initial studies from Klein's lab have started to resolve the oligomer structure of MRJP-1 (major royal jelly protein).

Quiz on Cancer
Cancer, is the second most leading cause of death worldwide. Cancer is not just one disease but many diseases. There are more than 100 different types of cancer. Take this quiz on and test how much you know about cancer.

However, the scientists found that resolution stalled around 11 Angstroms -- not enough to reveal the potential secrets hidden in the jelly.

They fear that the commercially available product may have been the limiting factor.

Tracking Hive Dynamics With Radio Frequency ID Tags on Honey Bees
Hundreds of individual honey bees were tracked for several weeks after scientists attached radio-frequency identification tags on them.

"We've bought commercial royal jelly, but it goes through a lot of handling -- freezing, thawing and re-freezing -- before it gets to us, which could affect the ultimate resolution we can see in this protein and how we can do functional tests on it," added Tongqing Li, post-doctoral associate at the varsity.

Researchers are now hoping to extract royal jelly from the university's campus to find out "how it modifies cell growth across different species, and how it might modify cancer cell signalling," Klein said.

Source-IANS