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Products of the hive - sticky, sweet and healthful

Better Nutrition, Feb, 1998 by James F. Scheer

Do you remember learning about the birds and the bees? Well, there may be something no one ever told you -- bees produce some of nature's most nutritional substances during their springtime dance amidst the flowers. Four of these products of the hive -- bee pollen, honey, propolis, and royal jelly -- are receiving more and more attention for their health-supportive benefits.

Bee pollen: "the world's perfect food"

In his book, How to Live the Millennium: The Bee Pollen Bible, the late Royden Brown, says, "Chemical analyses from research laboratories all over the world show that bee pollen provides all the nutrients mankind needs for complete life support."

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The nutrients in bee pollen include 22 amino acids -- with higher amounts of the eight essential aminos than most high-protein foods -- 27 minerals, the full span of vitamins, as well as carbohydrates, essential fatty acids, and numerous enzymes and coenzymes, which are necessary for efficient digestion of food, healing, and general good health.

What exactly is bee pollen? Bee pollen is a golden-colored dust gathered by bees from the stamens of flowers. If it were not for bees that carry this male pollen to female receptors, many flowers and species of plants would die out. Flying from flower to flower, bees collect pollen on their underside and front legs and, with pollen combs on their rear legs, they store pollen in four pollen baskets on each side of their rear leg joints; they later deposit this pollen in their hives.

Over the years, bee pollen has been treasured for its many health-enhancing benefits, which include its use as an aid for weight control and allergies and to promote beauty and longevity.

Brown has told us that, "Bee pollen works wonders in a weight control or weight stabilization regimen by correcting a possible chemical imbalance in body metabolism which may be involved in either abnormal weight-gain or abnormal weight-loss. The normalizing and stabilizing effects of this perfect food from the beehive are phenomenal." He suggested that bee pollen accomplishes these effects by "stoking the metabolic fires" and believes that it should be recognized as "nature's true dietetic weight-loss food." Brown also said that bee pollen acts as a natural appetite suppressant because it contains the amino acid phenylalanine, which is featured in many natural weight-loss formulas. Surprisingly, it seems that that for those who need to gain weight, the phenylalanine in bee pollen exerts the opposite effect.

Of bee pollen's use as a beauty aid, it has been shown that the consumption of bee pollen can improve the appearance of unhealthy or aging skin. It has demonstrated benefits when applied externally, as well. Brown quotes Lars-Erik Essen, M.D., a dermatologist from Halsinborg, Sweden, who pioneered the use of bee pollen as a beauty aid as saying `"It seems to prevent premature aging of the cells and stimulates growth of new skin tissue. It offers effective protection against dehydration and injects new life into dry cells. It smoothes away wrinkles and stimulates a life-giving blood supply to all skin cells."'

In their book, Sexual Nutrition, Morton Walker, D.P.M., and Joan Morton wrote of bee pollen's ability to promote longevity and ease allergies. Of longevity, they cite work done by Professor Nicolai Vasilevich Tsitsin, a Russian geriatrician and biologist at the Longevity Institute of Russia, who was a leading authority on longevity. They say he accidentally stumbled upon the importance of bee pollen's role in longevity. Investigating why so many natives of the Russian state of Georgia (in the Soviet Union at that time) lived more than 100 years -- some as long as 150 -- he learned that most of these modern Methuselahs were bee-keepers. Every day, they ate raw, unprocessed honey, rich in bee pollen.

Of bee pollen's beneficial effect on allergies, Walker and Morton cite work done by William G. Peterson, M.D., of Ada, Okla., a clinical allergist who used bee pollen to relieve the allergy symptoms of 22,000 patients, and that of another doctor, Ullrich Wahn, M.D., a researcher at Heidelberg University Children's Clinic in Germany, who alleviated or managed hay fever and allergy-related asthma with a solution of bee pollen and honey. It should be noted, however, that a small percentage of the population may be allergic to bee pollen; you should try a small amount first and monitor any reaction.

Mainly, however, it is anemophile pollen, the wind-borne, helter-skelter type, which can cause allergic difficulties -- pointed out the late Royden Brown in his 1993 book, The World's Only Perfect Food. Entomophile pollens [the type with which supplement preparations are made], on the other hand, "hitch a ride on the insects, primarily the honeybees, who forage among their blossoms," and do not typically cause difficulties for people.

In addition, human and animal experiments show that bee pollen can: (1) rev up energy; (2) help us cope with diarrhea and constipation; (3) tranquilize patients without side effects; (4) increase the amount of blood hemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying, iron-containing pigment in red blood cells) -- especially in anemic patients; (5) rid the body of accumulated toxins caused by drugs, alcohol, smoking, junk foods, and stress; and (6) chelate and flush out artery-clogging biochemical deposits.

Products of the hive - sticky, sweet and healthful

Better Nutrition, Feb, 1998 by James F. Scheer

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