effect of fresh royal jelly ingestion on glycemic response in patients with type 2 diabetes

conclusions it seems that rj does not appear to have significant immediate effects on glycemic factors in patients with type 2 diabetes. however, further studies with larger sample sizes and different doses of rj are needed to achieve more precise results. background type 2 diabetes is the fourth major public health problem worldwide. royal jelly (rj) insulin-like activity and blood glucose modulating properties have been reported in animal and healthy volunteers. objectives this study aimed to investigate the effect of a single dose of fresh rj as a complementary therapy on glycemic response in patients with type 2 diabetes. patients and methods in this randomized clinical trial, 40 patients with type 2 diabetes were assigned into the rj (n = 20) and placebo (n = 20) groups and received either 10 g fresh rj or placebo after overnight fasting. serum glucose, insulin and c-peptide concentrations were determined at 0, 60, 120 minutes after the intervention. independent t-tests and repeated measures anova were used to analyze data. results the mean serum glucose levels were significantly decreased in rj and placebo groups; however, mean serum level was different but not statistically. (p = 0.77). one hour after rj ingestion the mean serum insulin concentrations were increased and after 2 hours it was decreased insignificantly (p = 0.54, p = 0.20). the mean c-peptide concentrations were significantly increased after 1 and 2 hours of rj ingestion; however, in the placebo group we observed a slight but insignificant reduction at the time of 1 and 2 hours in the mean c-peptide serum levels (p = 0.40). moreover, there was no significant difference in none of the glycemic control parameters between both studied groups (p > 0.05).