POSITIVE EFFECTS OF BEE POLLEN ON HUMAN GUT MICROBIOTA

Simulated Digestion and Fermentation in Vitro by Human Gut Microbiota of Polysaccharides from Bee Collected Pollen of Chinese Wolfberry

Research conducted at Nanjing Agricultural University, China, in 2018, investigated digestion and fermentation in vitro of polysaccharides from bee pollen of Chinese wolfberry. The polysaccharides of bee pollen were identified as mannose, ribose, rhamnose, galacturonic acid, glucose. The data revealed that a higher molecular weight fraction of pollen was not digested in simulated gastric and small intestinal juices, while the small molecular fraction was degraded. In addition, the bee pollen was not affected by human saliva, and however, it could significantly enhance the production of short-chain fatty acids and modulate gut microbiota composition. The relative abundances of genera Prevotella, Dialister, Megamonas, Faecalibacterium, and Alloprevotella increased, and the abundance of genera Bacteroides, Clostridium XlVa, Parabacteroides, Escherichia/Shigella, Phascolarctobacterium, Parasutterella, Clostridium sensu stricto, and Fusobacterium decreased. The authors suggested that bee pollen could be developed as functional ingredients to improve human health and prevent disease through promoting gut health.* *Zhou, W., Yan, Y., Mi, J., Zhang, H., Lu, L., Luo, Q., Li, X., Zeng, X. and Cao, Y., 2018. Simulated digestion and fermentation in vitro by human gut microbiota of polysaccharides from bee collected pollen of Chinese wolfberry. Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 66(4), pp.898-907.

Source:  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jafc.7b05546