Only 23% of Honey Sold in Malaysia is Pure?

Abstracts from the 1st International Conference on the Medicinal Uses of Honey (From Hive to Therapy) held by Universiti Sains Malaysia in August of 2006. The abstracts have been published by the Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences (Vol.14 No.1, January 2007).

http://www.medic.usm.my/publication/mjms/our_journal/mjms_january2007/Honey_Conf_Abstract.pdf

Begin a journey....

Let us begin our journey... Just to share with you my plan for the animal work.

Insya-allah after this eid fitr holiday, we'll start our animal work until a few weeks. Roughly, every monday begin from 13-10-08, i'll take tha rats from animal house (7 rats). Oh ya, forgot to write a letter to Prof Dr Rais, Head of Pharmacology Dept.

Why do i need to write a letter to him? Because i want to put my rat at his department animal room. At the same time, i'll be using his plethysmometer.

After that, i'll take the rat's blood from the tail. Remember to prepare hot water around 60 degrees, as what was advice by our expert, dedicated and well experienced medical lab technologist, Mr Linggam from Dept of Physiolgy. According to him, i can around 2 ml blood. So, roughly i can 1 ml serum to be use for biochemical analysis, insya-allah.

I'm wondering, do i need to measure the rat body weight? Yes, because i need to know the volume for injection. How to calculate the relation and association between the the rat body weight and volume of injection? Wait for next entry ya, insya-allah.

So, after withdraw the blood and put in plain tube, i need to left it at room temperature for 30 minutes before centrifuge to get the serum.

How long to centrifudge? How many rpm?

Wait until the next post ya!

Selamat berbuka puasa! Dont forget to make doa for me because the time near breaking fast is the time which doa is 'makbul'. This was guaranteed by out beloved Prophet from his saying.

How to prepare Carrageenan?

Before that, what's is carrageenan (CR)?

Why we need carrageenan?

Som what;s your answer?

In my study, i need to use 1% carrageenan.

Let us explore how to prepare for it;

1 g CR dissolved in 100 ml deionised water

So, 1000 mg CR = 100 ml deionised water
10 mg CR = 1 ml deionised water

Easy right? Is it enough for our study?

We just need 100 microliter per rat to inject in the subplantar area of the rat hind paw.

So, do you think it's enough?

How to prepare Indomethacine Drug?

Dose of indomethacine = 10 mg/Kg

How to prepare?

10 mg = 1 kg = 1000 g

So, 1 mg = 100 g

If the rat body weight is 200 g, we need 2 mg of indomethacine

If i want to inject 100 microliter for each rat, perhaps i have 7 rats, s0;

2 mg x 7 = 14 mg = 700 microliter which 100 microliter for each rat

Better to prepare extra;

2 mg x 10 = 20 mg = 1 ml

As a conclusion, 20 mg of indomethacine will be dissolved in 1 ml 0.5% Sodium Bicarbonate

Now, let us see how 0.5% Sodium Bicarbonate was prepared;

0.5 g of Sodium Bicarbonate dissolved in 100 ml deionised water

0.05 g of Sodium Bicarbonate dissolved in 10 ml deionised water

0.025g of Sodium Bicarbonate dissolved in 5 ml deionised water


Easy right?

Now, you can try to prepare the same dose of indomethacine for the rat with body weight 300 g.

What's the answer?

BV anti-inflammatory effect via inhibition of p-50 subunit of NF-kB

Title:
Antiarthritic effect of bee venom: inhibition of inflammation mediator generation by suppression of NF-kappaB through interaction with the p50 subunit.

Abstract available online via;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15529353

Method:

a) Anti-arthritic effect of BV in rat model;
1) carrageenan (CR) induced acute edema in the paw
2) chronic adjuvant-induced arthritis

b) Gene expression (inducible nitric oxide synthetase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)) measured by Western blotting

c) PGE2, NO and intracellular calcium (involved in the generation of superoxide anion, NO, TNF-α and iNOS)

d) p-50 subunit of NF-kB DNA determined by surface plasmon resonance analyzer

More on BV effect on cytokine

I just read a paper titled Effects of bee venom on the pro-inflammatory responses in RAW264.7 macrophage cell line.

This paper available online via;
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T8D-4FWKMB4-2&_user=152948&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=152948&md5=7900ba0f66b141f82893a8164d34210e

Their aim is to elucidate the mechanism behind the anti-inflammatory effect of BV.

NO and PG - play a major role in various inflammatory diseases

Where does both of them come from?
NO - generated from arginine by inducible nttric oxide synthase (iNOS)
PGs - generated from arachidonic acid by inducible cyclooxygenase (COX-2)

Any contol mechanism on both of iNOS and COX-2?
eukaryotic transcripton factor; nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) regulate both mediators

Cell used: RAW 264.7 stimulate by LPS/SNP

Parameter of measurement;
1) NO production
2) Gene expression of iNOS, COX-2, NF-kB and Mitogen activated protein
kinase (MAPK)by using RT-PCR

Macrophage Cytokine Release

DO you still remember with the word cytokine?

DO want to see how macrophage release cytokine?

Have a nice journey here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLJl3NwmpU



So, why cytokine? What's so interesting about cytokine? What's the role of cytokine?

If cytokine is release during inflammation, it's good right to protect our body?

So, why there's a lot of studies on cytokine inhibition?

Ha..ha...Smile.. You got the answer?

Let us watch our how our immune system operate;

New hope for treating multiple sclerosis

So, do you think bee venom can treat multiple sclerosis?

To answer this question, first we have to understand what is multiple sclerosis, what's the factor and what happend to the multiple sclerosis patient(s)?

Then, you have think is there any relevent or valid reason to use bee venom? Or how's bee venom going to work in this type of disease? How do you justify the potential use of bee venom to treat this type of disease?

You got answer? Dont hesitate to share with us.

Just write comment and feedback to us. Who knows, may be this blog discussion can create a good idea which will give hope to those who is suffer from multiple sclerosis, insya-allah.

All the best and success!

Effect of BV on cytokine

I just a read few papers about inflammation. Currently, i'm focusing on how to understand the mechasnim underlying behind the anti-inflammatory effect of bee venom.


http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/04/malaysian-researchers-study-medicinal.html


But before we go deeper about the miracle and mystery of inflammation, why i choose to study inflammation? Just a simple answer; because inflammation is a process and disease is an output. Most of the people studying the output which is referring to the disease(s).





Therefore, many thing(s) to explore in order to understand the msytery behind inflammation.


After i read, i found that most of the parameters just to justify wheather their test sample(s) has any relation with the inhibition of NF-kB (nuclear transcription factor kappa beta).


NF-kB was found to be associated with inflammation. Once NF-kB can be suppressed, insya-allah (god-willing) inflammation can be suppressed as well.





So, how do the scientists did to justify the relation between NF-kB and inflammation? They measure several parameters as described below;

Cells used;


1) Murine macrophage (RAW 264.7) which was induced by Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)/IFN-gamma (IFN-γ)


Parameter of measurement are;
a) Nitrate (NO2) [Nitric Oxide (NO) production] – Griess assay
b) Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)
c) Tumor Necrosis Factor- alpha (TNF-α)

2) Whole blood

Parameter of measurement are;
a) Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2)
b) Tromboxane B2 (TXB2)
c) Lipoxygenase kinetic assay (LOX)


Reference: Cardamonin inhibits pro-inflammatory mediators in activated RAW 264.7 cells and whole blood. Eur J Pharmacol. 2006 Apr 5.

Cells used;



1) Murine macrophage (RAW 264.7) which was induced by Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)/IFN-gamma (IFN-γ)


Parameter of measurement are;
a) Nitrate (NO2) [Nitric Oxide (NO) production] – Griess assay
b) Tumor Necrosis Factor- alpha (TNF-α)
c) IL-1β

2) Rabbit synovial fibroblast (HIG-82) which was induced Phorbol myristate acetate (PMA)



Parameter of measurement are;
a) Matrix Metallo Proteinase (MMP)
1) gelatinase
2) collagenase

Reference: 33rd Proceeding for Annunal Conference of MSBMB page 83.




How about mechanism behind BV anti-inflammatory effect? Can we said that the hypothesis is based on the inhibition of activation of the NF-kB pathway?


Let us explore....

Why bee venom?

Kindly let me greet you with a universal peace greeting, Assalamu 'alaikum warahmatullahi wabaraktuh which is mean peace be upon you!

Nowadays, everybody is talking about peace but the issue is, how to be peace and what should we do to promote peace? Is it hard to arrive at the peace station?


Ops.... i'm not going to discuss what peace is all about as well as where to find the road for peace. Perhaps, i feel that i've a very big responsibility to promote, create awareness and educate as much people as i can about bee venom.

Yes, it's the venom from the bee(s). So what? What's so important and interesting to discover about bee venom?

Aren't venom(s) are poisonous? Why not? You can refer to any pharmacology or toxicology text book(s) including wikipedia and the latest dictionary published, venom is broadly defined as a substance which is toxic to life.

So, why bee venom? In fact, it's well known to induce inflammation when the person get stung. You can see the sign of inflammation such as swelling, redness, pain and hot at the area which the bee stung.

In fact, i've personal experienced which my whole body got swelling, hot and itching when i got stung by the bee at my neck. I still remembered, that time, i was riding a motorcycle and i saw an insect flying around me. Suddenly i feel pain at my neck and i realized i was stung by that insect.

Quickly i stopped and parked my motorbike beside the road near the student hostel, 11 residential college UM. I removed the sting apparatus quickly and realized that the insect which stung me just now is a bee.

Oh, bee again. Bee is very close to my heart since when i was started working as a research assistant and we are working on purity and quality analysis of Malaysian honey. In fact, honey is my pre-breakfast food which i consume almost everyday including before i close my eye during night time.

Why honey? Very simple answer, same as simple as the sugar contain in honey. Glucose and fructose is the major sugar of honey. Fort example, below is the structure of glucose.

Why we eat carbohydrate such as rice, bread and etc? To get glucose. Why? Our cell(s) need glucose. Glucose is like a fuel for our cell to perform their function.

Amazingly, our brain and spinal cord is covered by epithelial cell called blood brain barrier. Foreign materials such as bacteria, parasite and anything that detected as foreign by our normal body system can't enter or penentrate the blood brain barrier.

You know what? Glucose can penetrate the barrier and act as a food for our brain cell! Aren't honey is a foreign material? Aren't glucose in honey is a foreign material too? But our cell need a glucose.

Without glucose, our brain cant function and we may expose to mental retardness. Normally, we got our glucose supply constantly from carbohydrate metabolism and gluconeogenesis. But this process (carbohydrate metabolism) take a long time because it's involve a lot of mechanism and biochemical pathway.

Since honey is riched with glucose, it can directly enter our blood system from our villus, and thus, after a few biochemical process, it's provide instant energy as well as enhance and stimulate the effectiveness of our immune system.

But of course, honey can't be consume in a large amount and must be taken in moderate quantity, same as the homeostasis concept which keep regulate our body function normally.

Everything must be in moderate but except one, good deeds which we have to do aggresively in order to make ourself among the success people in this life and the life after death.

But for those who interested to know more about what do i mean by carbohydrate metabolism, you can get this wonderful and meaningful book from UM book shop.

So, do you get the answer? Why bee venom? Wait for my next posting, insya-allah (god-willing). Why have to say insya-allah (god-willing)? Very beautiful and nice text available in Holy Quran, chapter 18, verses 23-24. Have look!