Natural products have been used for several years in folk medicine. One such natural medicine is apitherapy; which is the medical use of honey, propolis, pollen, royal jelly, bee venom etc. The curative properties of honey bees and their products is receiving renewed and increasing attention from scientists -that have a number of medicinal applications. As people are realizing that modern medicine is not the soul remedy for infections today. So, many of us are looking back to the past for the alternative approaches with least possible side effects like apitherapy. This chapter throws a light on the use of bee products and its clinical importance in healthcare and dentistry. The developments in science have led to us a better understanding of the ingredients presents in the bee products and has generated great interest in its use for medical treatments. These bee products promote healing by improving circulation, decreasing infl ammation, and stimulating a healthy immune response. Therefore, apitherapy being simple, convenient and available method are practiced in traditional self-heath care and also holds promise for the treatment of periodontal diseases, mouth ulcers, and other diseases of the oral cavity as well.

The nutritional and therapeutic aspects of natural products have gained more interest in recent years, owing to the importance that has been given to health and well-being. In this regard, honey represents an organic product whose high level of biologically active compounds and valuable nutrients have been extensively studied in order to prove its ability to provide an enhancement in health status. The use of honey in the process of healing or preventing certain diseases has been practiced throughout history and is now known as apitherapy. The aim of this review is to expand the knowledge and understanding towards the physicochemical characteristics of honey and the action of its main bioactive compounds towards health-beneficial properties (antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral, etc.) for apitherapeutic purposes. Notwithstanding all the assets, the usage of honey for medical purposes encounters some limi-tations regarding the factors that may affect the therapeutic potential of honey in apitherapy that will be pointed out in this overview.

The belief that beekeepers live longer than anyone else is present since ages. However, no research has been done to explore the longevity of life in beekeepers. Here, we investigated the telomere length in 30 male beekeepers and 30 male non-beekeepers and associated them with the longevity of life using Southern analysis of terminal restriction fragments (TRFs) generated by Hinf I/Rsa I digestion of human genomic DNA using TeloTAGGG Telomere Length Assay. Interestingly, we found that the telomere length of male beekeepers was significantly longer than those of male non-beekeepers with a p value of less than 0.05, suggesting that beekeepers may have longer life compared to non-beekeepers. We further found that the consumption of bee products for a long period and frequent consumption of bee products per day are associated with telomere length. An increase of year in consuming bee products is associated with a mean increase in telomere length of 0.258 kbp. In addition, an increase in frequency of eating bee products per day was also associated with a mean increase of 2.66 kbp in telomere length. These results suggested that bee products might play some roles in telomere length maintenance.

Apitherapy represents the utilization of bee products for preventing and curing a series of illnesses and also the promotion of a healthy life style through consumption of these products. Due to the fact that apitherapy is a part of medical science, bee products used for this purpose must have a certain quality, namely, they must possess a series of biologically active compounds that will help in the healing process. This study aims to show the "quality standards" for bee products used in apitherapy. Different samples of honey, propolis, bee-pollen, bee bread and royal jelly were analyzed for their physico-chemical parameters as well as for their active compounds, specific for each matrix. Standard methods were adapted in the lab for each matrix, using spectrophotometric and chromatographic determinations. Physico-chemical analyses of honey, bee-pollen, bee bread, propolis and royal jelly were in accordance with literature results. High amounts of flavonoids and phenolic acids were quantified in propolis tincture, bee pollen, bee bread, royal jelly and honey. Royal jelly samples were proved to be authentic and have a high amount of 10-hydroxydecenoid acid, a compound with high antioxidant and antibacterial activity.

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Telomeres are long repetitive DNA sequences of TTAGGG located at the end of the linear chromosomes and bound by shelterin proteins. Shelterin proteins function as the protection for the loop structure of telomere, which prevents the chromosome ends uncapped; resemble a DNA break and activates DNA repair mechanism. Telomeres are maintained by an enzyme called telomerase. Telomerase is not expressed in normal human somatic cells. Therefore, telomeres shorten with every cell division and limit the number of cell division. This limitation of cell division is termed replicative aging, which is thought to be a barrier to cancer formation. In addition, telomere shortening can induce replicative senescence which then leads to aging and human aging-associated diseases such as cancer and atherosclerosis. Several studies on human premature aging diseases such as congenital dyskeratosis and aplastic anemia also reported association between them and telomere length.