Hepatoprotective Potential of Chestnut Bee Pollen on Carbon Tetrachloride-Induced Hepatic Damages in Rats

Abstract

Bee pollen has been used as an apitherapy agent for several centuries to treat burns, wounds, gastrointestinal disorders, and various other diseases. The aim of our study was to investigate the hepatoprotective effects of chestnut bee pollen against carbon tetrachloride (CCI4)-induced liver damage. Total phenolic content, flavonoid, ferric reducing/antioxidant power, and DPPH radical activity measurements were used as antioxidant capacity determinants of the pollen. The study was conducted in rats as seven groups. Two different concentrations of chestnut bee pollens (200 and 400 mg/kg/day) were given orally and one group was administered with silibinin (50 mg/kg/day, i.p.) for seven days to the rats following the CCI4 treatment. The protective effect of the bee pollen was monitored by aspartate transaminase (AST) and alanine transaminase (AST) activities, histopathological imaging, and antioxidant parameters from the blood and liver samples of the rats. The results were compared with the silibinin-treated and untreated groups. We detected that CCI4 treatment induced liver damage and both the bee pollen and silibinin-treated groups reversed the damage; however, silibinin caused significant weight loss and mortality due, severe diarrhea in the rats. The chestnut pollen had showed 28.87 mg GAE/g DW of total phenolic substance, 8.07 mg QUE/g DW of total flavonoid, 92.71 mg Cyn-3-glu/kg DW of total anthocyanins, and 9 mg β-carotene/100 g DW of total carotenoid and substantial amount of antioxidant power according to FRAP and DPPH activity. The results demonstrated that the chestnut bee pollen protects the hepatocytes from the oxidative stress and promotes the healing of the liver damage induced by CCI4 toxicity. Our findings suggest that chestnut bee pollen can be used as a safe alternative to the silibinin in the treatment of liver injuries.

A comparative study of the antihyaluronidase, antiurease, antioxidant, antimicrobial and physicochemical properties of different unifloral degrees of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) honeys

“…In general terms, since honey is a good antimicrobial mixture it is used in the treatment of various wounds and burns 39 . The antimicrobial features of honey are caused by factors such as acidity, osmolarity, H 2 O 2 , and secondary compounds 12 .…”

“…The many active biological properties of honey, which vary depending on the type of honey, such as its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulator, antiviral, antimicrobial and antitumor activities, are thought to derive from differences in these components 8,9 . Previous studies about chestnut honeys have showed that the honey have important antioxidant 10 , antimicrobial 11 , antihepatoprotective 12 , immunomodulator 6 and antitumoral 13 properties, which is reported to possess high levels of apitherapeutic and biologically active properties. And also, the chestnut honey contained a valuable among of phenolic substances that were responsible for its biological active features 14 .…”

“…And also, the chestnut honey contained a valuable among of phenolic substances that were responsible for its biological active features 14 . There are many chestnut honey studies in the literatures, but there are no studies of its unifloral characterization with its associated biologically active properties 2,7,10,12,15 . For this reason, this study was intended to investigate some physical, chemical and biological active properties of chestnut honeys containing three different levels of nectar sources.…”

Honey as an apitherapic product: its inhibitory effect on urease and xanthine oxidase

“…The great majority of these compounds that give rise to the true quality of honey are phenolic structure molecules, phenolic acids, flavanols, pro-anthocyanins and tannins that determine the aroma, taste and sensory characteristics of honey 34,35 . These secondary metabolites possess not only anti-oxidant activities, but also anti-microbial, anti-tumoral, and anti-inflammatory functions [36][37][38] . yCorrelation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).…”

Effects of Nano-sized Bee Pollen as a New Cosmetic Ingredient

“…However, when it was administered with toxic substances, it protected liver cells from their harmful effect, which indicates, in turn, its ability to prevent toxication. In the detoxifying process, an important role is played by polyphenols, mainly flavonoids and phenolic acids [28][29][30][31].…”