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Pesquisa de recolha documental realizada pelo Prof. Doutor Ernesto Candeias Martins nos anos 2010/2011
Organizaçäo, administraçäo e gestäo de empresas ou exploraçöes agrícolas
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Dissertaçäo de Mestrado apresentada na Faculdade de Economia do Porto com vista à obtençäo do grau de Mestre em Economia
Relatório do Trabalho de Fim de Curso de Engenharia Florestal.
Bee pollen, usually used as an important source of nutrients and micronutrients for the young bees in the
hive, is also an important food for humans. This product is very rich in proteins, lipids, free sugars,
carbohydrates, and it contains trace amounts of minerals, phenolic acids, flavonoids and a good range of
vitamins. A brief look at bee pollen composition, it is easily recognised that it is a balanced food that can
be used as a stand-alone food or as a nutritional supplement or even as a medicinal product. Several
bioactivities, due to some of these compounds, were studied in bee pollen samples from different floral
sources and the results conduce to important properties. The amount and diversity of micronutrients could
induce vast benefits if used for health purposes following a complete risk assessment. Nevertheless, the
results pointing towards the encouraged use of bee pollen, the risk assessment of some floral species
containing toxic compounds has not been fully studied to insure the safety of consumption for all the
gathered flowers, so this will also be discussed in this chapter. Admiration for its goodness and medicinal
properties, bee pollen has been consumed for centuries, however, currently the efficacy and safety for all
consumed products, foods, supplements or medicines is an important tool to guarantee correct quality
control and essential to add value to the product.
To summarise, in this chapter we will put the situation of gaps in bee pollen research into some kind of
perspective, outlining some important points and discussing in more depth the implications of collecting
samples, chemical composition and risk assessment.
Ligustrum lucidum Aiton and its berries have been used in Chinese traditional medicine for around two thousand years. In the present study, L. lucidium berries harvested in two regions of Portugal were studied. Haemolytic activity and inhibition of oxidative haemolysis as well as the enzyme inhibitory activities (α-amylase enzyme and acetylcholinesterase) were assessed. Results suggest that the different biological activities varied according to the region where samples were collected. Results demonstrated that the sample obtained from region R1 was the most efficient extract for all parameters evaluated, presenting the lowest values of IC50, 10.67 ± 0.46 μg/mL for the inhibition of erythrocyte oxidative haemolysis, 58.28 ± 3.77 μg/mL for the α-amylase enzyme and 67.67 ± 2.10 μg/mL for the acetylcholinesterase inhibition. L. Lucidum berries may be an interesting source of compounds for use in the development of the therapeutic armamentarium for diseases where enzymatic disruption is believed to play a role
Bee pollen is one of nature's healthful food products with promising nutritional and therapeutic properties due to its chemical composition, particularly its protein content, which includes almost all the essential amino acids. Nevertheless the composition in lipids it is not completely known and supposedly will be highly variable depending on the floral origin. As such, this parameter must be ascertained in line with the research for bioactivity [1].
The aim of this work was to evaluate some health-related lipid indexes of bee pollen, namely omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio (n-6/n-3); polyunsaturated fatty acid/saturated fatty acid ratio (PUFA/SAT), atherogenic index (AI) and thrombogenic index (TI) in samples harvested in Portugal. The selected parameters were calculated from the Fatty-Acid Profile, which was determined as previously reported by Bárbara et al. [3].
Bee pollen samples, after harvest, were cleaned and frozen at -20 oC and were codified according the predominant pollen. Figure 1 associates the lipid indexes of the different samples with their botanical origins.
n-6/n-3 and PUFA/SAT ratios were in within the limits recommended by World Health Organization (below 4.0 and above 0.45, respectively), suggesting that bee pollen is a good product with the nutritional point of view, with potential beneficial effects for the consumer's health. Also, both AI and TI indexes of this natural product were low, even though this effect depended on bee pollen's botanical origin (Figure 1).
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Some diseases still need better therapeutic approaches, including the prevention of development. Natural resources are investigated with this purpose; among them, we decided to use an
invasive plant as a main strategy. This will help in two ways: screening new compounds in flowers
prevents the plant from causing widespread damage by controlling the dissemination and also obtains crude material for further applications. In the present study, flower extracts from Acacia dealbata
Link harvested in Portugal were studied during three stages of flowering. Phenolic compounds were
evaluated using HPLC/DAD and the total phenolics as the total flavonoids content was determined.
The bioactivities screened were antioxidant potential, inhibitory activities of some enzymes (acetylcholinesterase, lipase and α-glucosidase) and, to complete the screening, the inhibition of microbial
growth was determined against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, as well as for yeasts. The
data obtained suggested that the hydroethanolic extracts gave good results for all these biological
activities and varied according to the maturation status of the flowers, with the early stage being
the most active, which can be related to the chalcones content. This new approach will lead to the
possible control of the invasive plant and also future perspective research for therapeutic purposes.
The venom from Apis mellifera intermissa, the main honey bee prevailing in Morocco, has
been scarcely studied, despite its known potential for pharmacological applications. In the present
work, we investigated the composition, the anti-inflammatory activity, and the venom’s cytotoxic
properties from fifteen honey bee venom (HBV) samples collected in three regions: northeast,
central, and southern Morocco. The chemical assessment of honey bee venom was performed
using LC-DAD/ESI/MSn
, NIR spectroscopy and AAS spectroscopy. The antiproliferative effect
was evaluated using human tumor cell lines, including breast adenocarcinoma, non-small cell lung
carcinoma, cervical carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and malignant melanoma. Likewise, we
assessed the anti-inflammatory activity using the murine macrophage cell line. The study provides
information on the honey bee venom subspecies’ main components, such as melittin, apamin, and
phospholipase A2, with compositional variation depending on the region of collection. Contents
of toxic elements such as cadmium, chromium, and plumb were detected at a concentration below
5 ppm, which can be regarded as safe for pharmaceutical use. The data presented contribute to the
first study in HBV from Apis mellifera intermissa and highlight the remarkable antiproliferative and
anti-inflammatory effects of HBV, suggesting it to be a candidate natural medicine to explore.
Advances in ISO standardization of bee pollen.
“Bee pollen” is pollen collected from flowers by honey bees. It is used by the bees to nourish themselves, mainly by provid ing royal jelly and brood food, but it is also used for human nutrition. For the latter purpose, it is collected at the hive entrance as pellets that the bees bring to the hive. Bee pollen has diverse bioactivities, and thus has been used as a health food, and even as medication in some countries. In this paper, we provide standard methods for carrying out research on
bee pollen. First, we introduce a method for the production and storage of bee pollen which assures quality of the product.
Routine methods are then provided for the identification of the pollen’s floral sources, and determination of the more
important quality criteria such as water content and content of proteins, carbohydrates, fatty acids, vitamins, alkaloids, phen olic and polyphenolic compounds. Finally, methods are described for the determination of some important bioactivities of bee pollen such as its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antimutagenic properties.