Bee Propolis

[Mazen]

I don't know if there has been a thread about this before, but has anybody tried Bee Propolis or any other Bee products?

It is supposed to be antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and fights yeast infections

I found testimonials from another site where some people state it helped a lot

http://www.colitisfoundation.com/rat...at&category=19

[dingbat]

hi mazen

i've never heard anything about bee propolis nor tried it, but i have had some experience with manuka honey, which also has medicinal qualities. i believe it is taken religiously by some people to help their stomach problems, but i actually used it topically when my child had really bad chickenpox, and it helped - it sped up the drying of the sores, and soothed at the same time. i also think it promoted really good healing, as there were hardly any scars visible afterwards, even though there had been literally hundreds of sores.

[Mazen]

What a coincidance. I just got my first Manuka Honey UMF10+ jar yesterday and I started using it this morning. It's very tasty. The instructions say I should take a teaspoon 3 to 4 times a day on empty stomach. I'll keep you updated if it helps with Crohn's.

[Kev]

Hmmm, I wonder what the difference is between it and regular, plain old honey? I go thru a lot of honey as a substitute for sugar; brown, white, etc..

they say it (honey) is antibacterial, antifungal, the only food that won't spoil. I don't recall ever seeing bees at the hospital, the clinic, even the local vets..

[Mazen]

You need UMF Manuka Honey. UMF was first discovered by Dr Peter Molan, MBE, of Waikato University's Honey Research Unit.
Honey contains an enzyme that produces hydrogen peroxide, a proven antiseptic with antibacterial properties.
Dr Molan's research found another more powerful and more stable antibacterial property, called UMF, in some strains of manuka honey.
UMF is additional to the hydrogen peroxide antibacterial property.
These two properties together have a synergistic effect enhancing their effectiveness.
Studies are showing the enhanced antibacterial qualities of UMF Manuka Honey gives the honey special healing qualities.

http://www.manukahoney.com/resources/umf.html

[Kev]

Welll, w/o knowing the association between the Dr and the company selling this, or how controlled the study was... I (personally) tend not to place much faith in a study posted on a site which is owned, and benefits, the maker. But, on the otherhand, essentially one is buying honey.. and it just might help, even if it should turn out to be a placebo effect. Hey, I once told my doctor that I would accept placebo effect, as long as no one told me the difference. worst case scenario, you pay a little more for the honey... Be interested to see what results members who go this route attain.

[Mazen]

http://bio.waikato.ac.nz/pdfs/honeyr...bioactives.pdf

Here is an interesting paper on Manuka Honey as Medicine. An extract which is interesting to Crohn's is below:

Tonks et al. (2001) also found that monocytes already activated by exposure to mitogens had their production of
reactive oxygen species reduced by honey. This is an important bioactivity of honey, as a feedback loop (see
Figure 1) allows the reactive oxygen species produced as a consequence of the inflammatory response to destroy
bacteria to initiate a greater inflammatory response which can be very deleterious to the healing process. Apart
from inflammation creating pain, it causes opening of the circulation which leads to exudation of lymph from open
wounds which can be difficult to manage, and oedema in surrounding tissue which can restrict circulation through
capillaries and increase diffusional distances from capillaries to tissue cells. This reduces the availability of oxygen
and nutrients to cells and thus restricts the cell growth necessary to replace tissues to repair wounds.
Furthermore, the reactive oxygen species, being or giving rise to free radicals, are very damaging to the
surrounding tissues, such that a wound will not heal if excessively inflamed. A further problem that comes from
prolonged inflammation, where it is not sufficient to stop healing, is that it can give rise to over-growth of
fibroblasts such that keloid scars, contractures and fibrosis can result. It is probably the very effective anti-inflammatory activity of honey that is responsible for the minimisation of
scarring by honey dressings on wounds, although it may also be the antioxidants in honey removing free radicals
that is involved. Honey has a direct anti-inflammatory effect, not a secondary effect resulting from the antibacterial
action removing inflammation-causing bacteria.

I take it. It seems to help.

[BWS1982]

interesting, I wonder how much regular honey I should take in to see if anything will improve, since I know my mom has some of that already. I knew of honey's properties but didn't realize any caliber of potency.