Honey is a natural substance produced by honeybees, Apis mellifera, from the nectar of blossomed flowers or exudates of trees and plants producing nectar honeys or honeydews, respectively. It is a supersaturated solution of sugars, enriched with proteins, minerals, vitamins, organic acids and polyphenols. Honey possesses numerous nutritional, healing and prophylactic properties attributed by the rich components found in honey. Some of the health beneficial properties include wound healing, antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potential. This review relates the nutritional composition, antioxidant and therapeutical effects of honey with emphasis on Malaysian honeys.

Chlorella vulgaris, a unicellular microalgae, produces many intracellular phytochemicals namely carotenoids, tocopherols, ubiquinone and protein. Skin ageing which is induced by oxidative stress involves decreased extracellular matrix synthesis and increased expression of enzymes that degrade the collagenous matrix. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of C. vulgaris on the expression of genes encoded for collagen (COL) and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) which are involved in skin ageing. Human diploid fibroblasts (HDFs) were obtained from circumcision foreskin of 8-12 year-old boys. HDFs were cultured into 3 groups: untreated control cells, cells with stress-induced premature senescence (SIPS; cells were induced with H2O2 at passage 6 for 2 weeks) and SIPS treated with C. vulgaris (prolonged C. vulgaris treatment started at passage 4 and combined treatment with H2O2 at passage 6 for 2 weeks). Senescence-associated ß-galactosidase (SA ß-gal) was determined using senescent cells histochemical staining kit (Sigma, USA). Expression of COLI, COLIII, COLIV, MMPI, MMPII and MMPIII genes was quantitatively analysed with real-time RT-PCR method (iScript™ One Step real-time PCR with SYBR® Green; Biorad). HDFs treated with H2O2 (SIPS) exhibited senescent morphological features of flattening and enlarged with increased expression of SA ß-gal (p<0.05). Gene expression analysis showed COLI was downregulated in SIPS and SIPS treated with C. vulgaris (p<0.05) while COLIII decreased in SIPS and increased in SIPS treated with C. vulgaris (p<0.05). Expression of MMPI was increased in SIPS and SIPS treated with C. vulgaris (p<0.05) indicating its synergistic effect with H2O2 treatment. In conclusion, in skin ageing, COLI and COLIII genes were downregulated while MMPI was upregulated. C. vulgaris modulated the expression of COL and MMP genes by downregulating COLI and upregulating COLIII and MMPI but it did not exert anti-ageing effect.

Ginger extract has been reported previously by our group to exhibit anticancer and antioxidant effects by reducing tumour burden and lipid peroxidation respectively in he-patocarcinogenesis induced rats. The current study examined the expression of pro-apoptotic protein caspase-8 and anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 in hepatocarcinogenesis treated rats. Thirty normal male Wistar rats were divided into 5 groups based on the diet given: i) control (normal rat chow), ii) olive oil, iii) ginger extract (100mg/kg body weight), iv) choline deficient diet + ethionine, CDE (to induce liver cancer) and v) CDE+ginger extract. Rats were killed at week 8, and liver tissues were excised for immuno-histochemical study to identify pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic proteins, caspase-8 and Bcl-2. The observation on H&E staining confirmed the CDE diet induced liver can-cer as indicated by the presence of numerous oval cells. Identification of Bcl-2 expres-sion showed that 91.6% (11/12) of the samples from the CDE group revealed positive staining while treatment with ginger extract however inhibited the expression with only 8.4% (1/12) samples showing positive staining for Bcl-2. As for caspase-8 protein, 41.7% (5/12) of the samples from CDE group showed positive staining, which in-creased to 100% (12/12) with ginger extract treatment. Our findings suggest that gin-ger extract has an anticancer effect by inducing apoptosis in liver cancer cells via up-regulation of the expression of pro-apoptotic protein, caspase-8 and down-regulation of the expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2.

Long term glucocorticoids administration induces oxidative stress which leads to alteration of bone structure and strength. Palm oil is rich in tocotrienol, an antioxidant. It can be used for the prevention of oxidative stress related diseases. The main objective of this study was to determine the mechanism of palm tocotrienol in maintaining the bone structure and strength in glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis. Thirty two adult male Sprague-Dawley rats, aged 3 months, weighing 300-320 g rats were used in this study. Sixteen rats undergone adrenalectomy and were administered with 120μg/kg/day intramuscular injection of dexamethasone. Eight rats were supplemented with oral palm tocotrienol 60 mg/kg/day (Adrx+Dex+PTT) and the other eight rats were given oral vehicle palm olein 0.1 ml/kg/day (Adrx+Dex). Eight rats underwent sham procedure and were given vehicle palm olein 0.05 ml/kg/day by intramuscularly and oral 0.1 ml/kg/day (Sham). The rats were euthanized after two months of treatments. Eight rats were euthanized after acclimatic action without receiving any treatment (Baseline). The right femurs were used for bone biomechanical strength and histomorphometry analysis while the left for gene expression and oxidative stress enzymes activities. The results indicated that long-term glucocorticoid treatment significantly increased bone resorption marker, CTX (6060.7 ± 410 pg/ml) and decreased bone structure and strength. Osteoblast and osteoclast related genes expressions indicated an increase in bone turnover. Supplementation of palm tocotrienol had maintained serum resorption (2619.4 + 209 pg/ml) marker level and preserved bone structure and strength. Gene expression analysis showed decrease in bone resorption. The findings suggested that palm tocotrienol has potential benefits against glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis by regulating osteoblast and osteoclast related gene expression