IV.5.3.1. BIOCHEMICAL OFFER  SYNERGY OF HONEY BEE THERAPEUTIC PRODUCTS

Each of these two types of synergies - the one of the supply of substances contained in honey bee therapeutic products, which determines the synergy of presence and action in the patient's body – which are, in fact, a single unit, make of the apitherapy an unique therapeutic weapon to any other therapy, an nvaluable support of the biomedicine at the molecular and cellular level.

On the one hand, the honey bee therapeutic products offer the totality of the macronutrients - proteins, carbohydrates and lipids, as well as all the biostimulant-vitamins, minerals and so on - required for the biosynthesis of all the molecules and cells of the human body in order to keep it in a state of immunity against the exogenous or endogenous pathogen agents . On this basis, through its own metabolic mechanisms, the human body makes its own biosynthesis, being able to secure not only its plastic support, but also the consumption of energy for its vital physiological limits, or for its intellectual and physical activities, also involving consumption of energy which can always be maintained, restored.

On the other hand, the honey bee therapeutic products offer an impressive variety of biomolecules identical to the one of the biosynthesis of human body. These are protein biomolecules (with exactly the same chains of amino acids, enzymes, coenzymes, hormones, amines, etc.), lipids and carbohydrates, antioxidants and so on, showing biostructure identity with the similar ones, produced by the human organic metabolism, come to put handy to it an extremely wide range of substances that can be used directly without other interventions and treatments. The advantage of the offer are of immense importance when, due to one or many declared disease/diseases the human body has not any longer the physiological capacity to synthesize these substances, without which it can not return itself to a state of homeostasis. In a brief summary, we are trying to make a classification of the dual offer of the honey bee therapeutic products:

I) in the biosynthesis of all types of proteins needed by the body:

1) the honey bee therapeutic products provide all the essential and nonessential amino acids required for the biosynthesis of all the proteins of the structure of molecules and cells of the human body;

2) the honey bee therapeutic products offer the biomolecules with protein structure and / or the biomolecules in whose structure there are proteins, too: these biomolecules are structurally identical to those provided to the body by its own biosynthesis:

a) type holoproteins and heteroproteins (metalloproteins, hemoprotein, flavoprotein, glycoproteins, nucleoproteins, phosphoproteins);

b) biomolecules of proteins that are not encoded in DNA, consisting of derivated amino acid such as 4-hydroxyproline, 3-N-methyl-lysine, acid-γ-carboxiglutamic, 5-hydroxilysine;

c) a wide range of bioactive amines;

d) the most hormones typical for the human body - proteic and glycoprotein hormones in directly usable forms - somathormons, somatostatines, estrogen, androgen;

e) amino acid derivatives (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, histamine, serotonin);

f) more than 800 enzymes known as biomolecules mostly identical to the ones of human organic synthesis: oxidoreductase, transferase, hydrolase, lyase, isomerase, ligase;

g) a wide range of zymogenes and coenzymes;

h) precursor of fibrillar proteins or biomolecules of fibrillar proteins already synthesized,  especially collagen, elastin, keratin, kitine (together with fibroblasts and the amino acid glycine -these represent a third part of the total of the amino acids constituents of the collagen and also proline, hydroxyproline, etc.).

II) in all lipid biosynthesis needed by the body:

1) the honey bee therapeutic products which provide all the necessary precursor substances for the biosynthesis of all types of organic lipids, including those necessary for the synthesis of the biomolecules and their cells;

2) the honey bee therapeutic products provide directly usable lipids biomolecules as:

a) simple lipids containing fatty acid esters (glycerides, cerides);

b) complex lipids containing scraps of fatty acids and alcohols (phosphoglycerides, sphyngolipids);

c) derivated lipids containing compounds resulting from the hydrolysis of simple and complex lipids (fatty acids, superior aliphatic acids, sterols, carotenoids);

d) directly usable steroid hormones or their precursors.

The bee steroids are classified according to the number of carbon atoms in the molecule.

Table no. 4. Honey Bee Steroids

(Adapted from Andrițoiu V., 2006, Andrițoiu and Andrițoiu, 2010)

III) in the biosynthesis of all carbohydrates needed by the body:

1) the honey bee therapeutic products offer the most comprehensive and complete range of directly assimilable monosaccharides without the intervention of the human organic biosynthesis: threeoses, tethroses, penthoses, hexoses (glucose, mannose, galactose), cetohexoses (fructophuranose or levulose and fructose);

2) derivatives of monosaccharides as directly functional biomolecules:

a) desoxysaccharides - the most important being 2-deoxyribose, carbohydrate component of   desoxyribonucleic acid structure;

b) aminosaccharides: glucosamine, galactosamine and manosamine of the structure of heteroglycans:

c) glycosaminoglycans or mucopolysaccharides (hyaluronic acid, chondroitin 4 and 6 sulfate, dermatan sulfate, heparan sulfate, keratan sulfate, heparin);

d) proteoglycans and glycoproteins (they have in their structure monosaccharides as mannose, galactose, sialic acid, fructose, glucosamine, galactosamine, xylose, etc. arrachynose; the glycoproteins have important biological roles: the collagen and elastin have structural role; they are involved in the formation of channels necessary for the ions circulation; they have a    role in the intercellular communication (cell-virus, cell-bacteria etc.); they can act as hormons (eg: the gonadotropins); they have a role in defense as the immunoglobulins,   interferons, complement system.

IV) in minerals:

1) the honey bee therapeutic products contain all the minerals that are credited as having functions in the human body homeostasis (as macrominerals and oligominerals) in the state of directly assimilable salts; interesting is the fact that in the bee products the minerals are in the same quantitative proportions which are – meaning they should be - in the human body;

2) the honey bee therapeutic products contain biomolecules directly usable by the body, in the structure of which are the mineral metalloproteins, metalloenzymes, coenzymes, antioxidants etc.

V) in the vitamin:

1) in the honey bee therapeutic products are, as directly usable biomolecules, all the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) and all the soluble vitamins: the group of vitamin B and vitamin C;

2) organic precursor substances necessary for the biosynthesis of vitamins.

VI) vitamnin-like factors (acting as placeholders / amplifiers of vitamins):

1) as biomolecules: choline, ubiquinone - of which the most important is the Coenzyme Q10  (CaQ10) - myoinositol, carnitine, bioflavonoids;

2) in the structure of the other biomolecules, such as acetylcholine, routine,lithic acid, etc.

VII) insulin-like factors (acting as placeholders / enhancer of insulin):

- vitamins E, C, B8, biotine (vitamin H);

- minerals - Se, Zn, Vn, Cr;

- insulin-like factor of the pollen, royal jelly and apilarnil (their source is the pollen used for feeding the larvae and the nurse bees).

In many studies on the effects of the apitherapy, when discussing the carbohydrate balance of the human body, they are of the opinion to avoid the use of the bee products by those who have diabetes. Also, the medical studies of classical medicine, in unison, reccomend that the  consumption of the concentrated sweets be avoided by the people who have high blood sugar. If you do a listing of theirs, the honey is always listed. In this paper, in the section "Diseases, Studies and Clinical Cases", we’ll show several cases of hyperglycemia, where, as a sweetener or located in the structure of the honey bee therapeutic products, the patients consume about 225-230 g of honey per day, but their blood glucose level decreases steadily. This effect is, among others, one of the reasons for we believe it is necessary that the medical research, basic and clinical, investigate the effectiveness of the insulin-like factors;

VIII) growth factors: CSF, best represented as G-CSF (the above synthesis, far from being complete, is adapted from Arnold, 1978; Boch, 1979; Caillas, 1973, 1975; Ialomiteanu, 1978; Popravko, 1978, Marin et al., 1966, 1997, Mladenov, 1972; Sălăjan, 1984, Schmidt, 1982; Nakajin et al., 1982, Oka et al., 2001; Propolis, 1979; Crane, 1979; Păunescu et al ., 1988, Nagy et al., 1986, Okamoto et al., 2003; Mateescu, 2007; canines et al., 2007; Iliesiu, 1991; Andrițoiu V., 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009; Andrițoiu and Andrițoiu, 2010; Banskota et. al., 2001; Era, 2005, Matsui et al., 2002).

There are many things that are not known about the bee products, as well as about  the efficiency that they have in the treatment of various diseases the mankind suffer from. The loser in this situation  is the humanity and not the pharmacochemical industry. The apitherapy and the honey bee therapeutic products with their inestimable prophylactic and therapeutic potential , now, not only in Romania, are located  somewhere, somewhere at the edge of  the medical research and pharmacology. This situation is at least unfair. And the  injustice is reflected in the most direct way to the  patients.

The study, at the level of the basic scientific research – combined with the clinical research at the level of the effects – of the biochemistry of the food with which the nurse bees grow the 'brood' (jelly, bees, drones) from the egg stage to larva until hatching from the comb cells, as in the maturation stage, too - before the first flight - could provide information of exceptional value.

This information could enrich the treasure of knowledges accumulated by the molecular and cellular biology; moreover, they could provide to the biomedicine, through apitherapy, bioidentical principles of human cellular and molecular structures. For example, the substances contained in the food of the bee brood, from the first stage of larva contain a lower amount of somathormons than the ones to be found out in the food of the future queens and drones, moderating their growth. In addition, this food contains substances that androgenize the genital apparatus of the bees, making it inoperable for the reproduction (except the "giddy" bees that lay eggs only if the hive remained free of queen and from their eggs, unfertilized, grow only the drones. The substances of this food act, as effects, like the androgenisant pharmacochemical contraceptives (but without their side effects). When we’ll present the clinical cases of endometriosis resolved by apitherapy, simultaneously with the restoration of the female fertility, even after several surgeries, usually accompanied by the hormonotherapeutic induction of the temporary menopause (with hormones of  pharmacochemical synthesis), the successes we got, for the first time, are due to the usability of such substances.

Of course, the pharmacology could enrich its dowry of the therapics by the knowledge of some biostructures who have proven their millennia efficiecy: the bees appear before men, who they accompanied and helped along the entire history.

Now, through their activities, the people endanger their existence, knowing about these extraordinary beings about only two things: that the honey is sweet, but it is guarded by the needle of the bees.

The feeding and growth of the bee brood can provide information of great value not only for the molecular and cell biology, but also for the pharmacology, immunology and clinical biomedicine.