Inside Gwyneth Paltrow’s Latest Wellness Adventure: Bee Sting Therapy

Ever the wellness adventurer, Gwyneth Paltrow recently caught our attention when she said she’d experimented with bee stings, a painful but ancient technique said to reduce inflammation and skin scarring.

While the bee-related health benefits of honey, royal jelly, and pollen are well known, bee venom is more of a mystery. Certainly, this more extreme form of apitherapy, utilizing melittin, the active compound in bee venom with anti-inflammatory properties, is not for everyone—after all, it can cause anaphylactic shock or even (in extreme cases) strokes in those who are allergic. Still, for centuries, homeopaths have used live bees, placed on tender areas of the body or acupuncture points (either alone or with acupuncture needles), to treat a range of skin maladies and their underlying causes. Now venom can be stored for strategic injections, and the area can be numbed beforehand and precisely targeted. Homeopaths are currently still the biggest advocates and practitioners of apitherapy, though many M.D.s and specialists say they are keeping an eye on studies involving the practice.

New York dermatologist Jeannette Graf, M.D., says rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS), skin lesions, and chronic hives are all conditions that may benefit from strategic bee stings. These ailments often involve direct immune system attacks on tissue including skin or nerves. “Bee venom has the potential to help minimize symptoms—the science isn’t really there yet, but there’s potential for things that don’t respond to Western medicine,” Graf says. W. Clay Jackson, M.D., vice president of the board at the American Academy of Pain Management, agrees that melittin can be useful for nerve pain, MS, and arthritis, though he warns that stings or injections should be used alongside drug therapies that have been proven to slow the degenerative conditions. “Bee venom should be a complementary treatment, not the only treatment,” he says.

In any case, it’s a phenomenon worth keeping an eye on—but discuss it with your doctor before you get stung.

 

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