Possible therapeutic effect of royal jelly on endometriotic lesion size, pain sensitivity, and neurotrophic factors in a rat model of endometriosis

Zahra Farahani, Mahnaz Taherianfard, Mohamad Mehdi Naderi, Hortensia Ferrero
Physiological reports · 2021 · vol. 9(22) , pp. e15117 · doi:10.14814/phy2.15117 · PMID:34806344 · W3217114204
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 7 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This study investigated the relationship between endometriosis pain and neurotrophic factors in rats, finding royal jelly treatment reduced endometriotic lesion size and pain scores.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is the abnormal growth of endometrial tissue. The goals of the study are: (1) Is any correlation between endometriosis pain and neurotrophins in the serum, dorsal root ganglion (DRG), and peritoneal fluid (PF) in rat models of experimental endometriosis?, (2) Possible therapeutic effects of royal jelly (RJ) on pain scores, size of endometriotic lesion, and neurotrophic factors. Forty-eight Sprague Dawley female rats weighing 205.023 ± 21.54 g were maintained in a standard condition. The rats were randomly divided into one of the six groups: Control (no intervention), Sham-1 (remove of uterine horn), RJ (administration of 200 mg/kg/day RJ for 21 days), Endometriosis (induction of endometriosis), Treatment (induction of endometriosis+administration of 200 mg/kg/day RJ for 21 days), and Sham-2 (induction of endometriosis+administration of water). Formalin test performed for pain evaluation. The levels of Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), substance P, and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The mean pain scores in all three phases of the formalin test were significantly increased by endometriosis induction (p < 0.05). The concentrations of BDNF, NGF, and CGRP in DRG of the endometriosis group were significantly higher than these factors in the Control, Sham-1, and RJ groups (p < 0.05). RJ could significantly (p < 0.001) decrease the mean lesion size and the mean pain score in the late phase (p < 0.05). The present results determine that endometriosis pain may be related to nervous system neurotrophic factors. Treatment with RJ could decrease the size of endometriosis lesions as well as pain scores. The findings may shed light on other complementary and alternative remedies for endometriosis.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Fatty Acids Nerve Growth Factors Animals Ascitic Fluid Ascitic Fluid Ascitic Fluid Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Disease Models, Animal Endometriosis Endometriosis Fatty Acids Female Ganglia, Spinal Ganglia, Spinal

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