title: Effects of royal jelly supplementation on regulatory T cells in children with SLE.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To our knowledge, no previous studies have focused on the immunomodulatory effects of fresh royal jelly (RJ) administration on systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in humans. Our aim was to study the effect of fresh RJ administration on the disease course in children with SLE with some immunological markers (CD4+and CD8+regulatory T cells and T lymphocytes apoptosis).
  
  
  METHODS
  This was an open-label study in which 20 SLE children received 2 g of freshly prepared RJ daily, for 12 weeks.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The percentages of CD4+CD25+highFOXP3+cells (CD4+regulatory T cells) and CD8+CD25+highFOXP3+cells (CD8+regulatory T cells) were significantly increased after RJ treatment when compared with baseline values. Apoptotic CD4 T lymphocytes were significantly decreased after RJ therapy when compared with baseline values and the control group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first human study on the effect of RJ supplementation in children with SLE. Our results showed improvements with 3-month RJ treatment with regard to the clinical severity score and laboratory markers for the disease. At this stage, it is a single study with a small number of patients, and a great deal of additional wide-scale randomized controlled studies are needed to critically validate the efficacy of RJ in SLE.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Pathology Department, South Egypt Cancer Institute, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
authors.forename: Asmaa M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Zahran
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
authors.forename: Khalid I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Elsayh
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt; ksaad8@yahoo.com; khaled.ali@med.au.edu.eg.
authors.forename: Khaled
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saad
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
authors.forename: Esraa M A
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Eloseily
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
authors.forename: Naglaa S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Osman
authors.affiliation: Medical Biochemistry Department, College of Medicine, Taif University, Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mohamd A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Alblihed
authors.affiliation: Zoology Department, Laboratory of Immunology & Molecular Physiology, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
authors.forename: Gamal
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Badr
authors.affiliation: Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.|Food Science and Nutrition Department, National Research Center, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Mohamed H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Mahmoud
keywords: children; regulatory T cells; royal jelly; systemic lupus erythematosus