V.2. CLINICAL APITHERAPY
The clinical apitherapy, which means the treatment of various human diseases with the use of the honey bee therapeutic products (food supplements whose main production support are the bee products 1) related to apitherapy as theoretical science, as well as the pharmacology of two points of views:
- the theoretical apitherapy which should be entitled to become an equally entitled branch of the medical science and pharmacology (pharmacognosy 2, pharmacokinetics 3, pharmacodinamia 4). The clinical apitherapy should provide the scientific information on the potential intervention of the apitherapy in various human diseases;
- the clinic apitherapy, through feedback, shall help to the development of the theoretical apitherapy and of the pharmacology of the honey bee therapeutic products, by the conclusions on the efficacy and safety in the clinical reported cases.
The chief principles on which our method in the clinic apitherapy clinic is based on are:
- the scientific knowledge of the diseases: causes (etiology), or systemic organ damage, like cellular-molecular dysfunction that they caused;
- the knowledge of the diagnostic, clinical and laboratory methods and their proper interpretation within clinical context;
- the knowledge of the methods and therapeutic agents employed by the conventional medicine in each condition addressed, together with their benefits, but also their potential limitations, given the possible contraindications and side effects, which in some cases can be iatrogene 5;
- the customed knowledge of each patient, involving, among others: age, sex, body weight, knowing his health history (in some conditions is also necessary the family survey / family history); the disease evolution and the effects of drugs or of other prior medical acts from the diagnosis until the patient turns to apitherapy; any underlying conditions; occupation, family background, socio-economic living; current eating habits etc.
- the knowledge of the therapeutic agents contained in the prescribed honey bee therapeutic products that - and this should not surprise us - are the same as those used in the current clinical allopathic practice;
- the use depending on patient and condition, of the major advantages offered by the honey bee therapeutic products:
a) they are simultaneously food and medicine;
b) they contain the necessary therapeutic agents and substances to support, control and limit their actions;
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1. We remind that the honey bee therapeutic products we produce and use are food supplements. The standardization of the honey bee therapeutic products compulsory involves the intervention of the pharmacology. The benefits of the standardization can not be questioned. As potential of beneficial intervention, with few exceptions, we remain the followers of the food supplements
2. The pharmacognosia is a branch of pharmaceutical sciences, whose object is the study of the substances contained in the raw materials, which are pharmacologically active substances (which can be therapeutic agents).
3. Farmacokinetics - branch of pharmacology, whose object is the study of the therapeutic agents metabolism phases in the human body depending on the dosage and time of administration, on the basis of which it develops pharmacokinetic models mathematically interpretable.
4. Farmacodinamia - branch of pharmacology, whose object is to study the biochemical mechanisms of action of the therapeutic agents on the organs and body tissues.
5. Iatrogenic / iatrogeny - effect of a medical act, inclusively of the prescribed drugs that treating the underlying cause, causes another / other diseases. There are also cases where the doctor, deliberately, taking into account the urgency and / or the importance of the therapeutic intervention in a particular disease, prescribes a medication known for its iatrogenic potential.
c) they provide a synergistic biochemical offer impossible to reproduce in any laboratory, macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids), and a complex of minerals, vitamins, enzymes, hormones, antioxidants, growth factors, etc…;
d) they provide not only the substances of which, by its own metabolism, the body synthesizes what it needs, but also biomolecules identical to the ones of human synthesis, fact of major importance in cases of functional, organic disorders;
e) they can be produced under a customized way, with therapeutic agents dosed according to the clinical and laboratory parameters of each patient;
f) given under a qualified way, the honey bee therapeutic products: do not induce dependence, no contraindications, no side effects; but some substances, administered in unproper doses can trigger allergies, can induce autoimmunity, can cause hormonal disorders, can cause the onset of fibroses or may increase the last and so on
g) the honey bee therapeutic products have an invaluable apiprophylactic potential: administered according to the suspicions of the state of health offered to the clinician by the medical laboratory tests, in conjunction with other clinical and laboratory investigations, can prevent the development of the disease.
The call of the patients to apitherapy occurs in the most various stages of the disease. Some of them resort to this means of treatment from the onset of the disease. Some address themselves to us after months or years - more or less – have passed and they have crossed a number of treatments or other medical procedures, if their health problems were not solved. There are cases where, as some of them say it, the apitherapy is their last chance. Some of them come with hope. Others - and they say it themselves, as demoralized – come just for trying. They heard someone saying that the apitherapy helped him or her, or have read about a similar case. Perhaps of all the others, they are the ones which put on our shoulders the heaviest stone.
Depending on the history, possible antecedetes, laboratory tests and other medical documents submitted (examinations, hospital discharge papers, medical letters, recipes, treatments followed, etc….), we recommend or no to be done other laboratory tests and / or other investigations. There are cases where, according to the medical history and laboratory values (an increase in eosinophils and IgE), we recommend the allergy tests.
Usually, of the medical tests - the tests considered as routine - but also in clinical cases where they should be mandatory, lack some which, correctly interpreted, would put these cases in a different light and would require other adaptations of the therapeutic pharmacochemical protocols. We refer in particular to the absence of the serum protein electrophoresis with the detection of the immunoglobulins, too, in assessing the lipidaemia only through the total cholesterol values - without knowing its fractions -, in assessing the serum calcium level only through the total calcium values without deterining the ionic calcium, too, etc.
Such observations we have made not only in assessing the patients' medical tests in Romania, but also in Canada, France, Germany etc. The medical documents that will accompany the clinical cases reported on our patients, inclusively the ones of other countries, come to support our claims. But on the other hand, we tackle the task of highlighting the clinical relevance of these analyses. Also, we resume the reasoned proposal, which we supported in previous studies and, especially in the PhD thesis in medical sciences, that these analyses be included in the routine laboratory tests. Obviously, in order to convince, the values of these analyses will be ubiquitous both in the presentation of the cases of clinic apitherapy, and of those which will support apiprophylaxis potential to maintain the human body homeostasis.