Is Bee Pollen Good for You? Part 2
Bee pollen is said to boost energy, enhance athletic performance, and even protect against cancer. What’s the science to support these claims?
A spoonful of honey makes the medicine go down, as we learned from Mary Poppins. But could a spoonful of bee pollen be the secret to a long and healthy life? The grainy yellow powder made up of plant pollen and bee secretions is an ancient remedy that still enjoys a reputation as a superfood today. Is there really something to it or is it just another fad?
Lots of people use bee pollen as a general nutrition supplement, and in part 1 of this 2-part series, I talked about the nutrients it contains. But bee pollen is also promoted as a way to improve athletic performance, reduce symptoms of PMS and menopause, treat allergies and asthma, and even fight cancer.
People swear that it increases their energy, boosts their immune system, helps them lose weight or sleep better, and so on. Unfortunately, most of these benefits have never been evaluated in scientific trials. Without controlled experiments, it’s really hard to say how much of these perceived benefits are due to power of suggestion or placebo effect. Let’s take a look at what research exists.
Does Bee Pollen Enhance Athletic Performance?
Bee pollen’s modern reputation for boosting strength and endurance got a big boost in the 70s, when the coach for the Finnish Olympic track and field team boasted that bee pollen was the team’s secret weapon. Mohammed Ali jumped on the bandwagon, too. (Maybe that was the inspiration for his famous “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” line?).
Around the same time, a Russian Olympic coach named Remi Korchemmy also claimed to have conducted a two-year, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, which purportedly found that bee pollen improved his athletes’ abilities to exercie at maximum intensity and shortened their recovery time. Unfortunately, Korchemmy’s data were never reviewed or published, and Korchemmy later pled guilty to giving athletes illegal performance enhancing drugs. By that time, however, bee pollen’s reputation among athletes was well-established.
Two later studies that were published in peer-reviewed journals failed to find any significant effect of bee pollen on athletic performance.
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Does Bee Pollen Block Estrogen?
You might see bee pollen promoted as a remedy for PMS, menopausal miseries, prostate difficulties, or even as a way to reduce the risk of breast cancer. There is one study that found that bee pollen gathered from one or two specific plants blocked the activity of one type of estrogen in one type of human cells in a petri dish. While this is an interesting finding, it’s a pretty big leap from there to a natural remedy for all things related to estrogen.
Does Bee Pollen Reduce the Toxic Effects of Cancer Therapy?
Once again, there was a study done in a petri dish that found that bee pollen protects cells from damage when chemotherapy drugs are added to the mix. Hopeful news but still a long way from a solid evidence that taking bee pollen during chemotherapy will reduce the side effects in humans.
There was also a very small study done in the 1970s in Yugoslavia and another in the U.S. in the 90s, both of which found that bee pollen helped buffer the side effects of radiation therapy in women being treated for cancer. I would love to see some more, better designed trials on that. But if you are undergoing radiation or chemo, please check with your doctor before adding bee pollen to your regimen. Not only do we need more research to know for sure that it’s effective, we need more research to make sure it’s safe.
Researchers have also found that bee pollen inhibits the growth of various types of tumor cells in petri dishes and/or lab rats. I know that sounds really encouraging but, unfortunately, the annals of cancer research are full-to-bursting with substances that kicked some serious cancer cell butt in the lab, but ultimately failed to improve outcomes in humans.
Does Bee Pollen Reduce Allergies?
Bee pollen is also promoted as a way to reduce symptoms of allergy and asthma. The idea is a sort of natural immunotherapy: by exposing yourself to allergenic substances that have been processed by the bee, you build up a tolerance to them. Way back in 1961, two doctors submitted an article to the Journal of Allergy, claiming that hayfever sufferers who took bee pollen had a 75 to 100% reduction in allergy symptoms. Pretty amazing. Yet this seems to be the beginning and end of the serious research on bee pollen as a treatment for allergy.
If you search the National Library of Medicine for more recent published research on bee pollen and allergies, all you will find is a number of reports of people having allergic reactions to bee pollen supplements. Ironically, people with airborne allergies are especially likely to have potentially life-threatening reactions. This brings me to my final point:
Is Bee Pollen Safe?
So what if the evidence is anecdotal, preliminary, or inconclusive? So what if some of the benefits might be due to power of suggestion? As long as something is safe and affordable, I’ve got nothing against a good old-fashioned placebo response. But bee pollen doesn’t have a pristine record for safey. In addition to the many reports of anaphylaxis and serious allergic reactions, there has been at least one case where bee pollen use led to kidney failure. The FDA has also issued a warning about bee pollen products that were found to be adulterated with unapproved weight loss drugs.
Bee pollen should not be used by anyone who is pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking blood-thinning medication (due to a known drug interaction). And, once again, anyone with a serious or chronic illness should definitely check with their doctor before taking bee pollen.
Although it’s easy to get excited by all the miraculous claims and testimonials, I’ve decided to leave the bee pollen for the bees.
Do you take bee pollen? Do you have any benefits or risks to add? Weigh in over at the Nutrition Diva’s Facebook page.
References
Akiyasu T, Paudyal B, et al. A case report of acute renal failure associated with bee pollen contained in nutritional supplements. Ther Apher Dial. 2010 Feb;14(1):93-7.
Hurren KM, Lewis CL. Probable interaction between warfarin and bee pollen. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2010 Dec 1;67(23):2034-7.
Jagdis A, Sussman G. Anaphylaxis from bee pollen supplement. CMAJ. 2012 Jul 10;184(10):1167-9.
Pinto B, Caciagli F, et al. Antiestrogenic and antigenotoxic activity of bee pollen from Cystus incanus and Salix alba as evaluated by the yeast estrogen screen and the micronucleus assay in human lymphocytes. Eur J Med Chem. 2010 Sep;45(9):4122-8.
Steben RE, Boudreaux P. The effects of pollen and protein extracts on selected blood factors and performance of athletes. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 1978
Sep;18(3):221-6.
Ulbricht C, Conquer J, et al. An evidence-based systematic review of bee pollen by the Natural Standard Research Collaboration. J Diet Suppl. 2009;6(3):290-312.
Wang B, Diao Q, Antitumor activity of bee pollen polysaccharides from Rosa rugosa. Mol Med Rep. 2013 May;7(5):1555-8.
Bee pollen image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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About the Author
Monica Reinagel is a board-certified licensed nutritionist, author, and the creator of one of iTunes’ most highly ranked health and fitness podcasts. Her advice is regularly featured on the TODAY show, Dr. Oz, NPR, and in the nation’s leading newspapers, magazines, and websites. Do you have a nutrition question? Call the Nutrition Diva listener line at 443-961-6206. Your question could be featured on the show.
