Royal jelly is food fit for a queen—a queen bee, that is. This milky white substance, secreted from glands in a worker bee’s head, is the life-sustaining food for all bee larvae for the first three days of life. After that, it’s just for Her Majesty: Only the queen bee larvae get royal jelly for the rest of their larval lives. This special diet is chiefly responsible for making the queen bee different from worker bees. Not only is she bigger than the other bees, she lives significantly longer. A hearty queen, raised on this high-powered jelly, lives for about six years, compared to only six weeks for worker bees.
Based on observations of the bee queen’s royal lifestyle, many people think that royal jelly must have some specific nutritional advantages. Under laboratory analysis, this mystery food turns out to be mostly water, protein, sugars, and fatty acids. It also contains high levels of B vitamins as well as potassium and the trace minerals zinc, iron, copper, and manganese. Royal jelly also consists of 18 amino acids, 8 of which our bodies need but can’t produce on their own, according to Steve Nenninger, N.D., a naturopathic doctor in New York City.
Many medicinal uses have been claimed for royal jelly. Some products are said to help rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, liver disease, kidney problems, pancreatitis, insomnia, stomach ulcers, and skin disorders. There have been no well-designed studies to support its use for humans, however.
A Royal Welcome
"Medically it’s been used for two age groups—the very young and the very old," says Theodore Chebuliez, M.D., a physician in Scarsdale, New York, and president of the American Apitherapy Society, a nonprofit organization that advances the investigation of the healing use of products from the beehive. He believes that for infants, royal jelly has been successful in treating a condition known as failure-to-thrive syndrome.
"Failure to thrive is just that—newborns don’t eat well and they don’t grow well. Its origins may be allergic, emotional, or physical," he says. "But if you feed failure-to-thrive infants with royal jelly, many do improve and start resuming normal growth and eating habits."
Likewise, royal jelly helps restore poor appetite as well as lack of enthusiasm, or malaise, in the elderly, he says. "These indications are fairly well known but not well-studied. The evidence is anecdotal."
Dr. Chebuliez credits royal jelly with a third use, "priming the immune system," which he believes could prove helpful for people with rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, lupus, and other autoimmune diseases. Again, the evidence is anecdotal. "I learned this from Chinese medicine. If you take royal jelly for several weeks, the immunological system will respond when it was not responding before," he says.
Bowls Full of Jelly
China is the number one supplier of royal jelly to the United States. To meet the demand, producers have special hives in which they create row upon row of queen cells with eggs, then wait for bees to fill the cells with royal jelly. When the eggs are swimming in the substance, workers suck the jelly out of each cell using a glass tube. Then the eggs are thrown away and replaced with fresh ones to continue the cycle.
Royal jelly has a slightly bitter, acidic taste. As a nutritional supplement, it’s available in tablets, capsules, and liquid and is often combined with Asian ginseng and other "energizing" substances. Liquid royal jelly should be stored in a tightly closed container and frozen until it’s used, says Dr. Cherbuliez, who takes a gram a day by scraping it directly from the jar with a spoon.
SUPPLEMENTSNAPSHOT
| Royal Jelly May help: Failure-to-thrive syndrome, malaise and poor appetite in the elderly, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, liver disease, kidney problems, pancreatitis, insomnia, stomach ulcers, and skin disorders. Cautions and possible side effects: Do not take royal jelly if you have allergies or asthma. It has been linked to bronchial spasms, acute asthma, anaphylactic reactions, and even death. Those with a history of asthma or a predisposition to allergies are especially at risk. |
Royal jelly can also be found in a variety of skin-care products, including creams, lotions, and soaps. Proponents believe that because of its high protein content, using royal jelly topically can slow aging. They also think that it provides the skin with the amino acids that form collagen.
