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Apitherapy is a branch of alternative medicine that uses honey bee products, including honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly and bee venom. There has been no scientific or clinical evidence for the efficacy or safety of apitherapy treatments. [1] [2] Bee venom can cause minor or major reactions, including allergic responses, anaphylaxis or death.
References to possible medical properties of bee products can be found in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Egyptian and Greek traditional medicine practices. [3] [4] Apitherapy has been practiced since the times of Hippocrates and Galen. [5] [6] Modern use of bee venom appears to have originated with Austrian physician, Philipp Terč, and his 1888 article "About a Peculiar Connection Between the Bee Stings and Rheumatism", [7] but his claims were never tested in proper clinical trials. [8] More recent alternative medicine practice is attributed to the Hungarian physician Bodog F. Beck who coined the term "bee venom therapy" in 1935, [5] and to beekeeper Charles Mraz (1905–1999) in the latter half of the twentieth century. [9] In 1957, the USSR Ministry of Health sanctioned use of bee venom to treat certain ailments by approval of Nikolay Artemov's "Instruction for Bee Sting Venom Apitherapy". [10] [11]
Humans have historically used bee products in various ways: beeswax was used in casting metals and making incendiary weapons, honey was used for food and religious offerings, propolis was used as an adhesive, and pollen was used for agricultural work such as plant breeding. [12] Much later, there was an attempt to use bee venom clinically via injection by J. Langer at the University of Prague in late 1890s and in 1930, a firm in south Germany named Mack produced bee venom solution commercially. [12] Apitherapy is used in traditional medicine in countries in Europe, Asia, and South America including China, Korea, and Russia. [12]
Apitherapy is promoted as alternative medicine for several uses, [2] but its health claims are not supported by scientific evidence. [2] Bee venom or other honeybee products are ineffective for the treatment or prevention of cancer. [1] In general, evidence for using honey in wound treatment is of such low quality that firm conclusions cannot be drawn. [13] [14]
Adverse reactions to bee venom therapy are frequent. [15] Frequent exposure to the venom can also lead to arthropathy. [16] In sensitized persons, venom compounds can act as allergens, causing a spectrum of allergic reactions that can range from mild, local swelling to severe systemic reactions, anaphylactic shock, or even death. [17]
In March 2018 it was reported that a 55-year-old woman died after receiving "live bee acupuncture", suffering a severe anaphylactic episode which the apitherapy practitioner did not respond to by administering adrenaline. [18] While stabilized by ambulance personnel on the way to the hospital, she died a few weeks later from complications resulting in multiple organ failure. [19] Live bee acupuncture therapy is "unsafe and unadvisable", according to researchers who studied the case. [17]
Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery.
Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability or evidence of effectiveness. Unlike modern medicine, which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials, producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies reside outside of mainstream medicine and do not originate from using the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural "energies", pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Frequently used terms for relevant practices are New Age medicine, pseudo-medicine, unorthodox medicine, holistic medicine, fringe medicine, and unconventional medicine, with little distinction from quackery.
Orthomolecular medicine is a form of alternative medicine that claims to maintain human health through nutritional supplementation. It is rejected by evidence-based medicine. The concept builds on the idea of an optimal nutritional environment in the body and suggests that diseases reflect deficiencies in this environment. Treatment for disease, according to this view, involves attempts to correct "imbalances or deficiencies based on individual biochemistry" by use of substances such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, trace elements and fatty acids. The notions behind orthomolecular medicine are not supported by sound medical evidence, and the therapy is not effective for chronic disease prevention; even the validity of calling the orthomolecular approach a form of medicine has been questioned since the 1970s.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is a United States government agency which explores complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). It was initially created in 1991 as the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), and renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) before receiving its current name in 2014. NCCIH is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Craniosacral therapy (CST) or cranial osteopathy is a form of alternative medicine that uses gentle touch to feel non-existent rhythmic movements of the skull's bones and supposedly adjust the immovable joints of the skull to achieve a therapeutic result. CST is a pseudoscience and its practice has been characterized as quackery. It is based on fundamental misconceptions about the anatomy and physiology of the human skull and is promoted as a cure-all for a variety of health conditions.
Cupping therapy is a form of pseudoscience in which a local suction is created on the skin with the application of heated cups. As alternative medicine it is practiced primarily in Asia but also in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. The practice of cupping has been characterized as quackery.
Melittin is the main component and the major pain-producing substance of honeybee venom. Melittin is a basic peptide consisting of 26 amino acids.
Apitoxin or bee venom is the venom produced by the honey bee. It is a cytotoxic and hemotoxic bitter colorless liquid containing proteins, which may produce local inflammation. It may have similarities to sea nettle toxin.
This page is a glossary of beekeeping.
A bee sting is the wound and pain caused by the stinger of a female bee puncturing skin. Bee stings differ from insect bites, with the venom of stinging insects having considerable chemical variation. The reaction of a person to a bee sting may vary according to the bee species. While bee stinger venom is slightly acidic and causes only mild pain in most people, allergic reactions may occur in people with allergies to venom components.
Alternative cancer treatment describes any cancer treatment or practice that is not part of the conventional standard of cancer care. These include special diets and exercises, chemicals, herbs, devices, and manual procedures. Most alternative cancer treatments do not have high-quality evidence supporting their use and many have been described as fundamentally pseudoscientific. Concerns have been raised about the safety of some purported treatments and some have been found unsafe in clinical trials. Despite this, many untested and disproven treatments are used around the world.
The Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) is an office of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis. OCCAM was founded in 1998 and is responsible for NCI's research agenda in pseudoscientific complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), as it relates to cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and symptom management. The OCCAM differs from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health in that it is exclusively focused on cancer, while the NCCIH funds a much broader program of NIH research into CAM for all diseases and disorders. It last produced an annual report in 2011 and spent $105 million on CAM research in 2011.
Many species of arthropods can bite or sting human beings. These bites and stings generally occur as a defense mechanism or during normal arthropod feeding. While most cases cause self-limited irritation, medically relevant complications include envenomation, allergic reactions, and transmission of vector-borne diseases.
George Lewith was a professor at the University of Southampton researching alternative medicine and a practitioner of complementary medicine. He was a prominent and sometimes controversial advocate of complementary medicine in the UK.
Propolis or bee glue is a resinous mixture that honey bees produce by mixing saliva and beeswax with exudate gathered from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the beehive. Propolis is used for small gaps, while gaps larger than the bee space are usually filled with burr comb. Its color varies depending on its botanical source, with dark brown as the most common. Propolis is sticky above 19 °C (66 °F), while at lower temperatures, it becomes hard and brittle.
Insects have long been used in medicine, both traditional and modern, sometimes with little evidence of their effectiveness.
Bodog Felix Beck was a Hungarian-born American physician who specialized in the treatment of arthritic and rheumatoid conditions using bee venom and who coined the term "bee venom therapy". There are no studies proving the ability of bee venom to cure any ailment.
Alternative medicine describes any practice which aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested or untestable. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), integrated medicine or integrative medicine (IM), and holistic medicine are among many rebrandings of the same phenomenon.
Mellivory is a term for the eating of honey. Honey is a sweet and viscous substance created by some eusocial insects, notably bees, for consumption by members of their hives, especially their young. Honey is also consumed by many other animals including human beings, who have developed beekeeping to make supplies of honey both reliable and plentiful. Despite honey's limited antimicrobial properties, it remains a food source for a variety of microorganisms.
practitioners claim ... bee venom can be used to treat various diseases, including several types of arthritis; neurological problems such as multiple sclerosis, lower back pain and migraine headaches; and skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, and herpes.
Honey appears to heal partial thickness burns more quickly than conventional treatment (which included polyurethane film, paraffin gauze, soframycin-impregnated gauze, sterile linen and leaving the burns exposed) and infected post-operative wounds more quickly than antiseptics and gauze.
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