Despite the fact that inflammation is one of the most common symptoms associated with hymenoptera stings, bee venom has been used in Oriental medicine for years as a anti-inflammatory agent. Recent research backs the traditional medicine and has shown that venom can counteract the diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease. It works through the systematic apoptosis of proliferated synovial fibroblasts through downregulation of BCL2 expression and upregulation of BAX and CASP3 (Hamedani et al. 2005). Additionally, the venom nicks DNA in the rheumatoid synovial cells and causes nuclear shrinkage, chromatin condensation, irregular shape, and cytoplastmic bleeding (Hong et al., 2005). The venom was also shown to decrease the activity of the inflammatory factors MMP-2 and MMP-9 (Hamedani et al., 2005).

The key to unraveling this contradiction is both the amount of venom and the cell type exposed to venom (Hamedani et al. 2005).  The optimum dose of venom for anti-inflammatory effects over 24 hours appears to be 10 µg/ml (Hong et al. 2005).

This website was made as part of a project for Animal Physiology class at Davidson College.