Sunday, February 03, 2008

Milk or Honey is Better for Our Therapy?

Medicine From Milk: Gene Therapy Transforms Goats Into Pharmaceutical Factories

In the above mentioned link news, researchers have used gene therapy to reduce the costs of producing therapeutic proteins, such as insulin, by reducing the time and costs it takes to breed animals capable of producing such proteins.

When we look at other foods that bear health benefits that may be utilized in a comparative way, honey comes first to our minds. Honey is a nutritional syrup that has a vast variety of health benefits that were known for thousands of years, and now it has been recognized by the peoples of the developed countries.

Even better, honey can be utilized as a vehicle of high health value, of other natural ingrdients that add more health benefits, and both can be used as is without industrial processing.

Researchers from the former Soviet Union, tried adding some nutritional supplements to the feed of honey bee, 30-40 years ago with good positive effects. They added fruits, vegetables, milk or its fats, egg yolk, and yeast. They added some plant extracts, like Gentian, Carrots and Beet. Moreover, they added synthetic vitamins, antiseptics, and antibiotics. They had found that adding these additives to the feed of bees (sugar), produced positive effects on both the bees and their produced honey.

Examples of the effects of the additives on the bees:
1- Gentian fed bees were found to increase ovulation,and consequently bees population.
2- Antibiotics fed bees were found to increase honey production (isn't that true in livestock animals and poultry?)

Examples of the effects of additives on the produced honey:
1- There are large changes in physical properties like color, odor,and condition (honey may solidifies), as well as taste.
2- Its content of vitamins has largely increased, e.g. Carrots fed bees produced honey with a high content of vitamin A, not to ignore the vitamins fed bees.

Finally, the new research is about goat genes and production of milk, yet milk is the vehicle in which the therapeutic agents are produced. Why don't we put honey on the map of research, so that we get its health benefits together with other natural ingredients, and both are used without industrial processing?

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