Inhalation of honey reduces airway inflammation and histopathological changes in a rabbit model of ovalbumin-induced chronic asthma

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Siti Amrah Sulaiman¹  Gurjeet Kaur²  Nurfatin Asyikhin Kamaruzaman³  Badrul Yahaya³ 

[1] Department of Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 16150, Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia;Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Minden, Penang, Malaysia;Regenerative Medicine Cluster, Advanced Medical and Dental Institute, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 13200, Kepala Batas, Penang, Malaysia;

关键词: Asthma;    Goblet Cell;    Preventive Group;    Goblet Cell Hyperplasia;    Manuka Honey;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-176

 received in 2013-12-19, accepted in 2014-05-20,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHoney is widely used in folk medicine to treat cough, fever, and inflammation. In this study, the effect of aerosolised honey on airway tissues in a rabbit model of ovalbumin (OVA)-induced asthma was investigated. The ability of honey to act either as a rescuing agent in alleviating asthma-related symptoms or as a preventive agent to preclude the occurrence of asthma was also assessed.MethodsForty New Zealand white rabbits were sensitized twice with mixture of OVA and aluminium hydroxide on days 1 and 14. Honey treatments were given from day 23 to day 25 at two different doses (25% (v/v) and 50% (v/v) of honey diluted in sterile phosphate buffer saline. In the aerosolised honey as a rescue agent group, animals were euthanized on day 28; for the preventive group, animals were further exposed to aerosolised OVA for 3 days starting from day 28 and euthanized on day 31. The effects of honey on inflammatory cell response, airway inflammation, and goblet cell hyperplasia were assessed for each animal.ResultsHistopathological analyses revealed that aerosolised honey resulted in structural changes of the epithelium, mucosa, and submucosal regions of the airway that caused by the induction with OVA. Treatment with aerosolised honey has reduced the number of airway inflammatory cells present in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and inhibited the goblet cell hyperplasia.ConclusionIn this study, aerosolised honey was used to effectively treat and manage asthma in rabbits, and it could prove to be a promising treatment for asthma in humans. Future studies with a larger sample size and studies at the gene expression level are needed to better understand the mechanisms by which aerosolised honey reduces asthma symptoms.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Kamaruzaman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.