Bee Products and Essential Oils as Alternative Agents for Treatment of Infections Caused by S. aureus

Abstract

Bacteria of the genus Staphylococcus are important human and veterinary pathogens. A crucial characteristic for this group of bacteria is that they can easily acquire mechanisms of antibiotic resistance for a plethora of antibiotics currently in use for human and animal therapies. Therefore, there is a great need to find novel, non-antibiotic chemotherapeutics with marked antistaphylococcal activity. Promising but still underestimated group of potential antistaphylococcal chemotherapeutics constitute bee products: honey, pollen, royal jelly, fermented pollen and especially propolis. Another group of natural products that exhibit promising antibacterial activity is essential oils. Usefulness of bee products and essential oils in the treatment of infections caused by S. aureus has been confirmed by results of many investigations carried out by researches in different regions of the world. In this chapter, we have presented the review of publication in this area as well as perspectives and limitations of future applications of these two groups of natural products