Fig 1.
CONSORT flowchart.
Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of patients with dry eye who received placebo (PB) or royal jelly (RJ).
Fig 2.
Change in Schirmer values in patients with dry eye symptoms who received royal jelly (RJ) or placebo (PB) tablets.
Error bars represent standard deviation. **p<0.01 vs. pre-treatment values.
Fig 3.
Change in Schirmer (baseline, ≤10 mm) values in patients with dry eye symptoms who received royal jelly (RJ) or placebo (PB) tablet.
Data represent mean ± standard deviation **p<0.01, ***p<0.005 vs. pre-treatment values Between-group score comparisons at each time point (baseline, week 4, and week 8) were performed using the Aspin-Welch test (†p<0.05).
Table 2.
Effects of royal jelly (RJ) on dry eye symptoms assessed by ophthalmological examinations.
Table 3.
Biochemical analyses for patients with dry eye symptoms who received royal jelly (RJ) or placebo (PB) tablets.
Fig 4.
Direct maintenance of acinar cell activity in lacrimal glands (LGs) by orally administrated royal jelly.
A: Effects of RJ on decreased tear secretion after postganglionic denervation (PGD; six mice). B: LG weight (n = 4–5 lacrimal glands). C: Histopathological changes in LGs Gross appearance of LG (upper) and hematoxylin and eosin staining of LGs (lower). The scale bar is 3 mm (upper) and 50 μm (lower). E: Typical transmission electron microscopy images of an acinar cell after vehicle (left) and RJ (right) treatment. The arrow indicates vesicle-rich acinar cells. The scale bar is 5 µm. All data represent mean ± standard deviation. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 versus sham. #<0.05, ## p<0.01 versus denervation with vehicle