Is Ipriflavone Contained in
Propolis?
By Michael Mooney (February, 2001) mmooney@medibolics.com
In the book The Osteoporosis Solution, it is stated
that ipriflavone is found in propolis. All data I could locate in the
peer-reviewed medical literature indicate that ipriflavone is not found in
nature, and is an artificial, laboratory-created version of a flavonoid.
This article is an analysis of the study by Bankova that The
Osteoporosis Solution derived its information from. It provides details
that show that the Bankova study does not in any way state that ipriflavone is
contained in propolis. (See: Bankova
VS, et al. High-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of flavonoids from
propolis. Journal of Chromatography, 1982;242:135-143.)
This study was a
study of a chromatographic technique. The study's primary purpose was not to
detail the flavonoid composition of propolis.
Table IV on page
139 contains 42 flavones, including ipriflavone, that were
compared for retention time as reference materials. It appears that many of them are not flavones
that this study or any study has detected in propolis.
This is supported
by a statement on page 135 that says that up to this time
("hitherto") a total of 25 flavonoids have been discovered in
propolis. On page 138 it says that three more flavones were discovered "for
the first time in propolis." These were dihydroflavonol, 2-hydroxy
flavanone, and isoflavone. This adds up to a total of 28 flavonoids
noted as having been discovered in propolis.
Since Table IV
contains 42 flavonoids, at least 14 of the flavonoids in Table IV are not found
in propolis.
Note, also that if
Table IV was only a representation of the flavones found in propolis,
then it would include 2-hydroxy flavanone, which was described as being
discovered "for the first time in propolis" on page 138.
However, 2-hydroxy flavanone is not included in Table IV.
After reading the
study several times I find nothing that says that Table IV only
includes flavonoids found in propolis. Table IV is a table of various
flavonoids that were compared for retention time. The purpose of the comparison
was to show that the analytical technique employed in this study was better
than another older technique, not to detail all the flavonoids found in
propolis.
In fact, on page
138, the last sentence, says, "Some representative flavonoid types
found in propolis were therefore chromotographed, using a Partisil PXS/10/25
ODS column and water-methanol-acetic acid (60:75:5) as the
eluent. Retative retention times are given in Table IV."
It does not say
that all the flavones in propolis appear in Table IV. It says "some."
After reading this
study several times carefully, I could find nothing that says that
ipriflavone was found in propolis.
lmnopqrstuv
