Tualang Honey Attenuates Noise Stress-Induced Memory Deficits in Aged Rats.

Ageing and stress exposure may lead to memory impairment while oxidative stress is thought to be one of the underlying mechanisms involved. This study aimed to investigate the potential protective effects of Tualang honey supplementation on memory performance in aged rats exposed to noise stress. Tualang honey supplementation was given orally, 200 mg/kg body weight for 28 days. Rats in the stress group were subjected to loud noise, 100 dB(A), 4 hours daily for 14 days. All rats were subjected to novel object recognition test for evaluation of memory performance. It was observed that the rats subjected to noise stress exhibited significantly lower memory performance and higher oxidative stress as evident by elevated malondialdehyde and protein carbonyl levels and reduction of antioxidant enzymes activities compared to the nonstressed rats. Tualang honey supplementation was able to improve memory performance, decrease oxidative stress levels, increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) concentration, decrease acetylcholinesterase activity, and enhance neuronal proliferation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus. In conclusion, Tualang honey protects against memory decline due to stress exposure and/or ageing via enhancement of mPFC and hippocampal morphology possibly secondary to reduction in brain oxidative stress and/or upregulation of BDNF concentration and cholinergic system.

Tualang honey supplement improves memory performance and hippocampal morphology in stressed ovariectomized rats.

Recently, our research team has reported that Tualang honey was able to improve immediate memory in postmenopausal women comparable with that of estrogen progestin therapy. Therefore the aim of the present study was to examine the effects of Tualang honey supplement on hippocampal morphology and memory performance in ovariectomized (OVX) rats exposed to social instability stress. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into six groups: (i) sham-operated controls, (ii) stressed sham-operated controls, (iii) OVX rats, (iv) stressed OVX rats, (v) stressed OVX rats treated with 17ß-estradiol (E2), and (vi) stressed OVX rats treated with Tualang honey. These rats were subjected to social instability stress procedure followed by novel object recognition (NOR) test. Right brain hemispheres were subjected to Nissl staining. The number and arrangement of pyramidal neurons in regions of CA1, CA2, CA3 and the dentate gyrus (DG) were recorded. Two-way ANOVA analyses showed significant interactions between stress and OVX in both STM and LTM test as well as number of Nissl-positive cells in all hippocampal regions. Both E2 and Tualang honey treatments improved both short-term and long-term memory and enhanced the neuronal proliferation of hippocampal CA2, CA3 and DG regions compared to that of untreated stressed OVX rats.

Improvement in immediate memory after 16 weeks of tualang honey (Agro Mas) supplement in healthy postmenopausal women.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the verbal learning and memory performance of postmenopausal women who received tualang honey (Agro Mas) in comparison with women receiving estrogen plus progestin therapy and untreated controls. METHODS: A total of 102 postmenopausal women were recruited and randomly assigned to three groups: tualang honey (20 g/d)[corrected], estrogen plus progestin therapy (Femoston 1/5), and untreated control. Their verbal learning and memory performances were assessed using the Malay version of the Auditory Verbal Learning Test before and after 16 weeks of intervention. Data were analyzed using the repeated-measures analysis of variance, and a P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: There were significant differences in the mean scores of total learning as well as the mean scores of trials A1, A5, A6, and A7 between the three groups. There were also significant differences in the overall mean scores of total learning and trials A1 and A5 between both estrogen plus progestin therapy and tualang honey groups when compared with the untreated control group. However, significant differences in the mean score for trials A6 and A7 were only observed between the estrogen plus progestin therapy and untreated control groups. CONCLUSIONS: Postmenopausal women who received tualang honey showed improvement in their immediate memory but not in immediate memory after the interference and delayed recall. This is comparable with the improvement seen in women receiving estrogen plus progestin therapy.