• Toxicological Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-4
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• 2012

Bee venom (Apis mellifera L., BV) has been used as a cosmetic ingredient for antiaging, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial functions. The aim of this study was to access the skin sensitization of BV, a Buehler test was conducted fifty healthy male Hartley guinea pigs with three groups; Group G1 (BV-sensitization group, 20 animals), group G2 (the positive control-sensitization group, 20 animals), and group G3 (the ethyl alcohol-sensitization group, 10 animals). The exposure on the left flank for induction was repeated three times at intervals of one week. Two weeks after the last induction, the challenge was performed on the right flank. No treatment-related clinical signs or body weight changes were observed during the study period. The average skin reaction evaluated by erythema and edema on the challenge sites and sensitization rate in the BV-sensitization group at 30 hours were 0.0 and 0%, respectively, which are substantially low compared with in positive control group (average skin reaction: 0.55, sensitization rate: 40%) and identical with in vehicle control group, representing a weak sensitizing potential. The average skin reaction and sensitization rate observed at 54 hours were 0.0 and 0% in the BV-sensitization group, respectively, and 0.25 and 20% in the positive control group, respectively. It was concluded that BV classified to Grade I, induced no sensitization when tested in guinea pigs and may provide a developmental basis for a cosmetic ingredient or external application for topical uses.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

Objectives : We investigated the synergistic effects of bee venom (BV) and natural killer (NK) cells on B16F10 melanoma cell apoptosis mediated by IL-4. Methods : We performed a cell viability assay to determine whether BV can enhance the inhibitory effect of NK-92MI cells on the growth of B16F10 melanoma cells, and western blot analysis to detect changes in the expression of IL-4, $IL-4R{\alpha}$, and other apoptosis-related proteins. EMSA was performed to observe the activity of STAT6. To confirm that the inhibitory effect of BV and NK cells was mediated by IL-4, the above tests were repeated after IL-4 silencing by siRNA (50 nM). Results : B16F10 melanoma cells co-cultured with NK-92MI cells and simultaneously treated by BV ($5{\mu}g/ml$) showed a higher degree of proliferation inhibition than when treated by BV ($5{\mu}g/ml$) alone or co-cultured with NK-92MI cells alone. Expression of IL-4, $IL-4R{\alpha}$, and that of other pro-apoptotic proteins was also enhanced after co-culture with NK-92MI cells and simultaneous treatment with BV ($5{\mu}g/ml$). Furthermore, the expression of anti-apoptotic bcl-2 decreased, and the activity of STAT6, as well as the expression of STAT6 and p-STAT6 were enhanced. IL-4 silencing siRNA (50 nM) in B16F10 cells, the effects of BV treatment and NK-92MI co-culture were reversed. Conclusion : These results suggest that BV could be an effective alternative therapy for malignant melanoma by enhancing the cytotoxic and apoptotic effect of NK cells through an IL-4-mediated pathway.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.37-44
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• 2013

Objectives The present study was designed to investigate the effects of bee venom extract pharmacopunctureon (BVP) at 肩井 (GB21) on the changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) in normal rats, and further to determine the mechanisms. Methods We purchased rats about 300g and prepared diluted BVP with normal saline. And we injected diluted BVP to rats gradually progressed from 0.001 mg/kg to 0.1 mg/kg at corresponding region to GB21. After injection, we measured the changes in rCBF and MABP of rats. In addition, to determine the mechanisms of this changes, we did the same experiments twice more after pretreatment with indomethacin and metylene blue separately. Results BVP significantly increased rCBF but decreased MABP, suggesting that BVP potently may increase rCBF by dilating pial arterial diameter. Furthermore, the increase of BVP-induced rCBF and the decrease of BVP-induced MABP were significantly blocked by pretreatment with cyclooxygenase inhibitor, indomethacin (1 mg/kg, i.p.). But the increase of BVP-induced rCBF and the decrease of BVP-induced MABP were not blocked by pretreatment with guanylate cyclase inhibitor, methylene blue (0.01 mg/kg, i.p.). Conclusions These findings indicate that the action of BVP is mediated by cyclooxygenase. Furthermore these results suggest that BVP can increase rCBF in normal state, as well as improve the stability of rCBF in ischemic state.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2010

Objectives: The objective of this study was to compare the effects of Sweet Bee Venom(Sweet BV) Therapy between the hand paresthesia patients with Osteoporosis and without Osteoporosis. Methods: This study was carried out to established the clinical criteria of hand parethesia. The patients who had past history of diabeics, neuropathy induced by alcohol or drug and was positive on Myofacial Pain Syndrome Theory were excluded. 32 patients who had hand paresthesia related with unknown-reason was selected by the interview process. And the effects of treatment were analyzed using VAS score before treatment, after treatment, after 1 month and after 3 months. Results and conclusion: After treatment, While Osteoporosis group decrease from $64.81{\pm}7.81$ to $27.21{\pm}7.32$, Non-Osteoporosis group decrease from $58.76{\pm}1.43$ to $24.74{\pm}3.81$ by VAS scores. and After 3 months, While Osteoporosis group increase from $27.21{\pm}7.32$ to $54.96{\pm}9.40$, Non Osteoporosis group increase from $24.74{\pm}3.81$ to $32.43{\pm}5.57$. Non-Osteoporosis group was accordingly more effective than Osteoporosis group after 3 months. So Sweet BV therapy for hand numbness patients without Osteoporosis was e effective than patients with Osteoporosis.

• The Journal of Churna Manual Medicine for Spine and Nerves
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.103-112
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• 2012

Objectives : This study was performed to report the effect of oriental medical treatments on the 4 patients with lateral epicondylitis of the elbow. Methods : The 4 patients were treated by Bee Venom acupuncture, Dong-Qi acupuncture, acupuncture on tender points of the origin of the extensor carpi radialis and taping on the extensor carpi radialis. The state of patients was measured by visual analog scale(VAS), elbow range of motion(ROM) and patient's subjective symptom grade(PSSG). Results : After mean 9.5 times of treatments, the recovery of elbow ROM was measured and significant pain relief was seen as the average of VAS changed from 10 to 1.25 and average of PSSG changed from 2.75 to 0.5 grade. Conclusions : These results suggest that oriental medical treatments including Bee Venom acupuncture, Dong-Qi acupuncture, acupuncture, taping are effective to improve the lateral epicondylitis of the elbow.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.167-172
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• 2012

Osteoarthritis (OA) is an age-related joint disease characterized by degradation of articular cartilage and its association with chronic pain. Purified Bee venom (PBV) has been traditionally used to the treatment for inflammatory diseases. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether PBV regulates the pro-inflammation against a mouse model of knee OA induced by papain. We studied the effect of PBV on papain-induced OA in the knee joints of mice. Mice were split into following groups: normal control, papain induced OA, OA treated with PBV, OA treated with meloxicam as positive control. Proteoglycan deposition was analyzed by safranin O-fast green staining and H&E staining. Papain injection significantly degraded the proteoglycan in OA mice at 42 days. Cartilage proteoglycan density was significantly higher in PBV treated OA group than those of the positive control groups. These results demonstrate that PBV efficiently suppresses pathological processes in an OA model. Thus, PBV could be a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of OA.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.715-723
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• 1999

Bee venom (BV) has been traditionally applied to relieve pain and to cure inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and neuritis. While several investigators have evaluated the anti-inflammatory effect of BV treatment, the anti-nociceptive effect of BV treatment on inflammatory pain is not reported. Therefore, we decided to evaluate the analgesic effect of BV treatment using Freund's adjuvant induced chronic arthritis model. Freund's adjuvant-induced arthritis has been used as an experimental animal model for RA in humans to assess the efficacy of the anti-inflammatory/analgesic drugs. In this study, subcutaneous BV treatment (1mg/kg/day) produced significantly reductions of symptoms related to arthritic pain (i.e. mechanical hyperalgesia and thermal hyperalgesia). The anti-nociceptive effect of BV was observed from at least 12 days after BV treatment. Furthermore, BV treatment significantly suppressed adjuvant induced Fos expression in lumbar spinal cord. We also found that local injection of BV into near the inflammatory site (especially Zusanli-acupoint) showed more potent analgesic effect on arthritic pain rather than distant injection of BV from inflammatory site (arbitrary side of back). The present study demonstrates that BV treatment has anti-nociceptive effect on arthritis induced inflammatory pain. The analgesic effect of BV on RA is probably mediated by the effect of BV itself or possible other mechanism such as counter-irritation. Furthermore, it is possible that BV acupuncture is one of the promising candidates for long-term therapy of RA.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.194-203
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• 2016

Objectives : The aim of this study was to observe the dose-dependent effects of bee venom (BV) pharmacopuncture on the serious ankle sprain in rats. Methods : The grade III ankle sprain was produced by surgically damaging the lateral ligaments complex of Sprague-Dawley rats. BV pharmacopuncture with the different doses($5{\mu}g/kg$, $10{\mu}g/kg$, $50{\mu}g/kg$) were treated on the different acupoints(GB34, GB39 and GB42) of the affected hind limb, respectively. By measuring foot weight bearing force ratio(FWBFR), the pain levels by ankle sprain and the pain recovery for 7 days were observed under BV pharmacopuncture on each acupoint. Results : In the normal and ankle sprained rat, the BV single administration decreased FWBFR in a dose - dependent pattern. The higher the BV dose, the higher the pain resulted in the normal and the sprained ankles. Especially, the dose - dependent effects of BV resulted in the most pronounced decrease in FWBFR in GB34. The recovery of FWBFR was shown at the low dose($5{\mu}g/kg$) BV and the effect was most remarkable in the BV of GB34, but the others showed no recovery effect compared with the control group. Conclusions : BV pharmacopuncture does not exhibit analgesic effects in acute phase of ankle sprain. However, the recovery of ankle sprain was more effective than the natural recovery in the case of low dose of BV repeated over time. Considering this, it is presumed that it would be important to select appropriate clinic guidelines for acute phase of ankle sprain.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1251-1255
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• 2005

Articular cartilage is an important factor for studying the arthritic diseases. The chondrocyte isolated from cartilage has the characieristic of differentiation and rf-differentiation when cultured in monolayer The bee venom (BV) acupuncture was investigated to examine their abilities on chondrocyte re-differentiation via rabbit chondrocyte primary culture. And the expression profiles of type II collagen (COL2) was analyzed using RT-PCR and western hybridization at third passage chondrocyte. In general, the mRNA expression of type II collagen was reduced step by step with the subculture of the chondrocyte. However, after the BV treatment for 48hr at third passage, the expressions of type II collagen were found to be significantly up-regulated, the same result was confirmed by western blotting. These results suggested that the diluted solution of BV for herb-acupuncture was very effective on the recovery of articular chondrocyte phenotype.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.65-84
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• 2001

We recently demonstrated that bee venom (BV) injection into acupoint (i.e. Zusanli) produced more potent anti-inflammatory and antinociciptive effect in Freunds adjuvant induced rheumatoid arthritis (RA) model as compared with that of non-acupoint injection(i.e back). However, the precise components underlying BV-induced antinociceptive and/or anti-inflammatory effects have not been fully understood. Therefore, we further investigated the anti-arthritic effect of BV after extracting the whole BV according to solubility (water soluble: BVA, ethylacetate soluble: BVE). Subcutaneous BVA treatment (0.9 mg/kg/day) into Zusanli acupoint was found to dramatically inhibit paw edema and radiological change (i.e. new bone proliferation and soft tissue swelling) caused by Freunds adjuvant injection. In addition, the increase of serum interleukin-6 by RA induction was normalized by the BVA treatment as similar with that of non-arthritic animals. On the other hand, BVA therapy significantly reduced arthritis induced nociceptive behaviors (i.e., nociceptive score for mechanical hyperalgesia and thermal hyperalgesia). Furthermore, BVA treatment significantly suppressed adjuvant induced Fos expression in the lumbar spinal cord at 3 weeks post-adjuvant injection. However, BVE treatment (0.05 mg/kg/day) has not any anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive effect on RA. Based on the present results, we demonstrated that BVA might be a effective fraction in whole BV for long-term treatment of RA-induced pain and inflammation. However, it is clear necessary that further fraction study about BVA was required for elucidating an effective component of BVA.