Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => Alternative Therapies => Topic started by: Conolly on January 30, 2019, 07:17:09 PM
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Hello alternative ladies,
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2018/4868412/
Conolly X
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Thank you, I will read this x
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Interesting. I have never tried royal jelly but I think it's quite expensive. Funny it mentions stiff neck and headache as am currently suffering.
I will Google some products. Thanks. :)
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Not dismissing this but...call me a cynic ;D:
Conflicts of Interest
Takashi Asama, Hidenori Matsuzaki, Shinobu Fukushima, Tomoki Tatefuji, and Ken Hashimoto are employees of Yamada Bee Company, Inc. Takashi Takeda received a medical advisory fee from Yamada Bee Company, Inc.
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That was an interesting read...hm.
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Not dismissing this but...call me a cynic ;D:
Conflicts of Interest
Takashi Asama, Hidenori Matsuzaki, Shinobu Fukushima, Tomoki Tatefuji, and Ken Hashimoto are employees of Yamada Bee Company, Inc. Takashi Takeda received a medical advisory fee from Yamada Bee Company, Inc.
;D
Actually in any case, I certainly wouldn't go rushing out and buying this product on the basis of that very limited study anyway! The statistics are too simplistic, the sample size too small and the length of time too short. Not only that the key menopausal symptoms of flushes and sweats were not reduced after 12 weeks.....there may well be some benefits of this for some general symptoms but it needs a lot more study!!
Hurdity x
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Hello Saffy and Hurdity,
As Hurdity said on another thread 'In fact much research is funded by the medical/pharma companies otherwise it wouldn't get done so there is an inbuilt bias to the questions that are asked.' So I can't see any problem that the manufacturers are trying to gather evidence that their product has potential use for whatever they are interested in testing.
The important thing is to disclose their conflicts of interest and that's exactly what they've done, unlike some praised studies and doctor's websites whose author's haven't disclosed their sponsors (pharmaceutical companies).
Conolly X
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Agree with you Conolly.
It's Royal Jelly, not a weird drug. Safe to try it and see, I would say.
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A bit of a meander:
Honey is the only food stuff that cannot go off
Honey has for Centuries been used over wounds in order to promote healing - pity the NHS doesn't take it up again
Honey is good for gut upsets - Dad would give us a teaspoonful when we felt unwell to soothe from the inside out
Wikipedia:
Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens.[1] It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of nurse bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony, regardless of sex or caste.[2]
When worker bees decide to make a new queen, usually because the old one is either weakening or dead, they choose several small larvae and feed them with copious amounts of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.[3]
Royal jelly is widely marketed as a dietary supplement. It is an alternative medicine that falls under the category of apitherapy. Both the European Food Safety Authority and United States Food and Drug Administration have concluded that the current evidence does not support the claim of health benefits, and have actively discouraged the sale and consumption of the jelly. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has taken legal action against companies that have used unfounded claims of health benefits to market royal jelly products. There have also been documented cases of allergic reactions, namely hives, asthma, and anaphylaxis, due to consumption of royal jelly.
I have however used locally produced honey in order to control allergic rhinitis. But I have to remember to start by end of Feb. and it has to be really local. I have two friends who keep bees, one 7 miles away - the honey from his bees made no difference. But the honey made in the village really did work for me. It stopped sneezing for months ...........
I would love to keep bees :-) as I enjoy watching their antics in our garden. Maybe have a chat with your local beekeeper?
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It will give me something new to buy in Holland and Barrett :) (I have enough Starflower Oil for all members on the forum ;D)
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It can be used in the bath too ............ so one could run the water, get in with a glass of mead and relax?
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Hello ladies.
I agree that any conflicts of interest should always be declared as part of any scientific study ( he who pays the piper calls the tune and all that ). It's also worth remembering that some studies can be designed to reach the desired conclusion. I saw a paper from an American breakfast cereal manufacturer concluding that children had better concentration and behavior in class after eating their product for breakfast that morning. However the very small print revealed that they were being compared to another group of children who hadn't had any breakfast at all! I wouldn't like to have been the classroom teacher on that day lol.
Wishing everyone well.
K.
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Hello Saffy and Hurdity,
As Hurdity said on another thread 'In fact much research is funded by the medical/pharma companies otherwise it wouldn't get done so there is an inbuilt bias to the questions that are asked.' So I can't see any problem that the manufacturers are trying to gather evidence that their product has potential use for whatever they are interested in testing.
The important thing is to disclose their conflicts of interest and that's exactly what they've done, unlike some praised studies and doctor's websites whose author's haven't disclosed their sponsors (pharmaceutical companies).
Conolly X
Well, I did say I wouldn't dismiss it, just highlighting one of the possible biases that others may miss ;). I am always reminded of a heated disagreement I had with an osteopath who recommended Glucosamine as it allegedly had good research to back up it's use for knee pain. The only piece of research showing a (significant) positive effect on knee pain used a particular formulation of Glucosamine manufactured by the company sponsoring the research ;D.
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DH often quotes the same Saffy ::)
4 me that relaxing bath with Royal Jelly [there are other bubbles available, of which I have loads it having been C.mas/birthday etc. 8)], lots of steam and a good book really eases me into feeling relaxed. When I was ill with depression I couldn't even sit still long enough to stay in a bath :'( nor could I concentrate to read. So my bath is my haven and I enjoy every bubble :-*
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Well it's one thing to fund a study being carried out by another (hopefully independent) institution like a university or research institute, quite another for employees to carry out their own (dubious) research on their own product - and then to promote the sale of it on the back of it - that's not even conflict of interest I would say - just blatant promotion!! ;D. Quite so Saffy.....
As CLKD quoted - the FDA in US have said that there is insufficient evidence to back-up the health benefit claims - let alone menopausal symptoms, and it may cause some adverse effects (as with many products....).
Maybe "safe to try it and see" but not great for women to be duped (exploited?) into spending lots of money on something on the basis of spurious claims. But hey - better than drugs! (I don't consider bio- = body-identical HRT to be a drug).
Hurdity x
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Used to work for Barbara Cartland, I seem to remember ::)
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Hello ladies,
Here are some of many recent studies on Royal Jelly that are not funded by any industrial company.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5641457/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191889#ack
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/mi/2018/7834381/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0753332218335121
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394018302118
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928468018300117
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2018.00050/full
It's obvious that due to cultural and traditional use in the East, most studies are from the other side of the world.
Conolly X
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Honey is used to sweeten coffee in the Middle East :sick02: :-X
Coffee is served in very small cups, black, thick ........... :-X :-X
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Hello CLKD,
Interesting, thank you! I also drink coffee with honey, but just a tiny blob! An old friend of mine, a Professor of Immunology, once told me that honey has a lot of antigens from pollen and that I could benefit from a bit of it everyday, a sort of chronic allergy jab, to avoid allergies during Springtime. So far so good, my rhinosinusitis has improved a lot and I also don't get colds so often. I've been doing it for more than 20 years now. Flu is a different matter, though. ::) Oh, and it has to be dissolved in a warm beverage! Ancient Middle East wisdom?
Conolly X
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I found that very local honey taken on a spoon twice a day helped my rhinitis. I had to begin in Feb. though or it didn't work. I did it with success for 3 years then forgot ::)