Royal Jelly Prevents Osteoporosis in Rats: Beneficial Effects in Ovariectomy Model and in Bone Tissue Culture Model

Royal jelly (RJ) has been used worldwide for many years as medical products, health foods and cosmetics. Since RJ contains testosterone and has steroid hormone-type activities, we hypothesized that it may have beneficial effects on osteoporosis. We used both an ovariectomized rat model and a tissue culture model. Rats were divided into eight groups as follows: sham-operated (Sham), ovariectomized (OVX), OVX given 0.5% (w/w) raw RJ, OVX given 2.0% (w/w) RJ, OVX given 0.5% (w/w) protease-treated RJ (pRJ), OVX given 2.0% (w/w) pRJ, OVX given 17β-estradiol and OVX given its vehicle, respectively. The Ovariectomy decreased tibial bone mineral density (BMD) by 24%. Administration of 17β-estradiol to OVX rats recovered the tibial BMD decrease by 100%. Administration of 2.0% (w/w) RJ and 0.5–2.0% (w/w) pRJ to OVX rats recovered it by 85% or more. These results indicate that both RJ and pRJ are almost as effective as 17β-estradiol in preventing the development of bone loss induced by ovariectomy in rats. In tissue culture models, both RJ and pRJ increased calcium contents in femoral-diaphyseal and femoral-metaphyseal tissue cultures obtained from normal male rats. However, in a mouse marrow culture model, they neither inhibited the parathyroid hormone (PTH)-induced calcium loss nor affected the formation of osteoclast-like cells induced by PTH in mouse marrow culture system. Therefore, our results suggest that both RJ and pRJ may prevent osteoporosis by enhancing intestinal calcium absorption, but not by directly antagonizing the action of PTH

Engineering Model Development of HIBARI: MicroSatellite for Technology Demonstration of Variable-Shape Attitude Control

We are developing a 40kg class microsatellite “HIBARI”. The main technical mission is demonstration a novel attitude control method called “Variable Shape Attitude Control (VSAC)” proposed by Matunaga, Tokyo Institute of Technology. This VSAC is based on an idea to utilize a reaction torque generated by changing the shape of satellites, for example driving solar array paddles by actuators. HIBARI is planned to be launched in fiscal year 2021 under “Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program” led by JAXA. We are developing EM of HIBARI and describes those in this paper. Specifically, the results of missions, systems, and various tests are shown and the validity is derived

Effects of Oral Glucosamine Hydrochloride Administration on Plasma Free Amino Acid Concentrations in Dogs

We examined the effects of oral glucosamine hydrochloride (GlcN), N-acetyl-d-glucosamine (GlcNAc) and d-glucose (Glc) administration on plasma total free amino acid (PFAA) concentrations in dogs. The PFAA concentrations increased in the control group and the GlcNAc group at one hour after feeding, and each amino acid concentration increased. On the other hand, in the GlcN group and the Glc group PFAA concentrations decreased at one hour after feeding. A significant decrease in amino acid concentration was observed for glutamate, glycine and alanine. Our results suggest the existence of differences in PFAA dynamics after oral administration of GlcN and GlcNAc in dogs