Effects of royal jelly supplementation on regulatory T cells in children with SLE

To our knowledge, no previous studies have focused on the immunomodulatory effects of fresh royal jelly (RJ) administration on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in humans. Our aim was to study the effect of fresh RJ administration on the disease course in children with SLE with some immunological m...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Food & nutrition research 2016-01, Vol.60, p.1-10
Main Authors: Zahran, Asmaa M, Elsayh, Khalid I, Saad, Khaled, Eloseily, Esraa M A, Osman, Naglaa S, Alblihed, Mohamd A, Badr, Gamal, Mahmoud, Mohamed H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apoptosis
Arthritis
Autoimmune diseases
CD25 antigen
CD4 antigen
CD8 antigen
Children
Chronic conditions
Cytokines
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Disease
DNA
Family medical history
Foxp3 protein
Immunology
Immunomodulation
Immunoregulation
Lupus
Lymphocytes
Lymphocytes T
Markers
Pediatrics
Rheumatology
Royal jelly
Supplements
Systemic lupus erythematosus
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:To our knowledge, no previous studies have focused on the immunomodulatory effects of fresh royal jelly (RJ) administration on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in humans. Our aim was to study the effect of fresh RJ administration on the disease course in children with SLE with some immunological markers (CD4+ and CD8+ regulatory T cells and T lymphocytes apoptosis). This was an open-label study in which 20 SLE children received 2 g of freshly prepared RJ daily, for 12 weeks. The percentages of CD4+ CD25+ high FOXP3 +cells (CD4+ regulatory T cells) and CD8 + CD25+ high FOXP3 + cells (CD8+ regulatory T cells) were significantly increased after RJ treatment when compared with baseline values. Apoptotic CD4 T lymphocytes were significantly decreased after RJ therapy when compared with baseline values and the control group. This is the first human study on the effect of RJ supplementation in children with SLE. Our results showed improvements with 3-month RJ treatment with regard to the clinical severity score and laboratory markers for the disease. At this stage, it is a single study with a small number of patients, and a great deal of additional wide-scale randomized controlled studies are needed to critically validate the efficacy of RJ in SLE.
ISSN:1654-661X
DOI:10.3402/fnrv60.32963