Thursday, August 19, 2010

Propolis Recommended for Treating Infertility

Mike Walden, American Chronicle, August 18, 2010

...Most parents when teaching their kids about sex education give the example of birds and bees, but most parents do not know that bees do a lot more than just gather honey for us. The fact is, bees are responsible for gathering a resinous substance that is known as Propolis and this they do from barks of trees, from buds and from the leaves too. The bees know that Propolis is very useful to protect their hives against destruction and disease.

Now medical studies have revealed that the same Propolis might be very useful for infertility treatment as well, particularly in the early stages of endometriosis in ladies. However frankly, we do not yet know how Propolis manages to do this but one thing we surely know and this is that, Propolis can cause many pharmacological actions like it can stop the functioning of the enzyme Aromatase which works majorly in estrogen metabolism. Several studies have been carried out on Propolis and its benefits, particularly with infertility and endometriosis, and these studies have showed us that just 500 mg of Propolis taken two times a day can improve the chances of a woman becoming pregnant by as much as 60% - while with conventional medicines this is just about 20%. This is thus what is referred to as the propolis infertility effect.

And not only that, the bee Propolis has also been seen to have given good results in defective sperm repair, which is a major cause of male infertility. This is why Propolis is also often used in centrifugation, which is a sperm preparation technique that is applied before IVF or In Vitro Fertilization (an assisted reproduction technology). Centrifugation can generate ROS or Reactive Oxygen Species and Propolis is very helpful in this. At least this was the result of a study in which Chilean Propolis was used on sperm in IVF with exogenous ROS and Benzo(a)pyrene.

There are other observations about Propolis too. It can be said that Propolis is a natural drug and it can protect genomic DNA against Benzo(a)pyrene induces damage, and also from a combination of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), 5 di-phosphate (ADP) and ferrous sulfate (FeSO4). Propolis is able to reduce intercellular oxidants significantly. Extracts from Propolis are also able to protect the membrane of the sperm from harmful oxidative aggression and it can also reduce the thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) and release LDH. Propolis thus according to the study is able to upkeep male fertility and because of its antioxidant features and it can successfully repair the male sperm as well...

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