Effects of Bee Bread on Paracetamol-Induced Intestinal Injury in Rats

Abstract

Although paracetamol (PS) is widely used as a safe analgesic and antipyretic agent in both humans and animals at therapeutic doses, high-dose administration may cause damage not only to the liver and kidneys but also to the gastrointestinal system. The present study aimed to evaluate the protective effects of bee bread (BB) on intestinal integrity and inflammation in a paracetamol-induced intestinal injury model in Wistar rats using histopathological and immunohistochemical methods. The expression levels of the tight junction protein zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1) and the inflammatory marker myeloperoxidase (MPO) were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. A total of 32 male rats (8-10 weeks old, 250-300 g) were randomly assigned to four groups (n = 8 per group), consisting of the control group, the BB group (750 mg/kg/day orally for 10 days), the PS group (1000 mg/kg administered as a single oral dose on day 10), and the PS plus BB group. The BB group exhibited normal intestinal histological architecture, preserved ZO-1 expression, and low MPO immunoreactivity, comparable to those observed in the control group. In contrast, the PS group showed marked mucosal irregularities, villus degeneration, increased inflammatory cell infiltration, decreased ZO-1 expression, and increased MPO immunoreactivity. Compared with the PS group, BB treatment alleviated paracetamol-induced intestinal injury, increased ZO-1 expression, and reduced MPO immunoreactivity in the PS plus BB group. In conclusion, BB administration alone did not adversely affect intestinal morphology or the evaluated immunohistochemical markers and partially protected against paracetamol-induced intestinal injury by preserving intestinal barrier integrity and attenuating inflammatory responses. © The Author(s) 2026. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.