The increasing incidence of obesity poses a great threat to public health worldwide. Recent reports also indicate the relevance of obesity in metabolic diseases. Chinese propolis (CP), as a well-studied natural nutraceutical, has shown a beneficial effect on alleviating diabetes mellitus. However, few studies have investigated the effect of CP on weight management and energy balance. We examined the beneficial effects of dietary CP on weight in high-fat diet-fed female and male mice and determined whether CP alters gut microbiota. In this study, dietary CP supplementation reduces body weight and improves insulin resistance in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice in a dose-dependent manner. CP treatment also reverses liver weight loss and triglyceride accumulation in association with hepatic steatosis. The 16S rRNA analysis of gut microbiota demonstrated that CP treatment modulates the composition in HFD-fed mice. Our study also suggests that male mice were more sensitive to CP treatment than female mice. Taken together, CP supplementation reduces weight gain and reverses gut microbiome dysbiosis induced by HFD. Further, the effects of CP treatment on metabolic biomarkers and microbiome structure differ by gender.

Melanoma, which features high metastasis and high lethality, is one of the toughest tumors to treat. Chrysin, which is rich in various plants, has shown a great inhibitory effect on melanoma proliferation. Here, we evaluated the metastasis suppressive effect of chrysin on melanoma in vivo and in vitro. In vitro, chrysin effectively inhibited ankios resistance from 5 μM cell migration, invasion from 10 μM, and tube formation capacity of melanoma cells from 20 μM. We discovered that chrysin interfered with the mesenchymal–epithelial transition via regulating FOXM1/β-catenin signaling, as the expression of key regulatory factors was downregulated by chrysin treatment, and overexpression of FOXM1 will attenuate the antimetastasis effect of chrysin. We also tested chrysin on lung colonization in melanoma metastasis, where we found fewer tumors were formed in the lungs of chrysin-treated mice. In addition, the expression of FOXM1 was also downregulated by chrysin in vivo. Collectively, our findings suggested the ability of chrysin treatment to lower the metastatic rate of melanoma through regulating FOXM1/β-catenin signaling, indicating the application potential of chrysin for melanoma therapy.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most malignant cancers with high mortality. Therefore, it is of great urgency to develop new agents that could improve the prognosis of Pancreatic cancer patients. Chinese propolis (CP), a flavonoid-rich beehive product, has been reported to have an anticancer effect. In this study, we applied CP to the human Pancreatic cancer cell line Panc-1 to verify its impact on tumor development. CP induced apoptosis in Panc-1 cells from 12.5 µg/mL in a time- and dose-dependent manner with an IC50 value of approximately 50 µg/mL. Apoptosis rate induced by CP was examined by Annexing FITC/PI assay. We found that 48 h treatment with 50 µg/mL CP resulted in 34.25 ± 3.81% apoptotic cells, as compared to 9.13 ± 1.76% in the control group. We further discovered that the Panc-1 cells tended to be arrested at G2/M phase after CP treatment, which is considered to contribute to the anti-proliferation effect of CP. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that CP suppressed Panc-1 cell migration by regulating epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). Interestingly, the Hippo pathway was activated in Panc-1 cells after CP treatment, serving as a mechanism for the anti-pancreatic cancer effect of CP. These findings provide a possibility of beehive products as an alternative treatment for pancreatic cancer.

Royal jelly, also called bee milk, is a source of high-quality proteins. Royal jelly proteins serve as not only a rich source of essential amino acids and functional donors but also an excellent substrate for preparing bioactive peptides. Most naturally occurring bioactive peptides in royal jelly are antibacterial, while peptides derived from proteolytic reactions are shown to exert antihypertensive, antioxidative, and anti-aging activities. Further studies are warranted to characterize the functional properties of major royal jelly proteins and peptides, to explore the preparation of bioactive peptides and the potential novel activities, to improve their bioavailability, to enhance the production efficiency for commercial availability, and finally to open up new applications for royal jelly as a functional food and potential therapeutic agent.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of neurodegenerative dementia among the older population, is associated with acute or chronic inflammation. As a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, aspirin has recently been...