Planta Med. 2001 Aug; 67(6): 538-41.

Effect of honey and sugars on the metabolism and disposition of naringin in rabbits.

Hou YC, Hsiu SL, Huang TY, Yang C, Tsai SY, Chao PD.

Graduate Institute of Chinese Pharmaceutical Science, China Medical College, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC.

To investigate the effect of honey and sugars on the metabolism and disposition of naringin, rabbits were administered naringin alone and naringin with honey or its component sugars - fructose, glucose and sucrose in crossover designs. An HPLC method was developed to determine naringenin in serum after enzymatic hydrolysis. Our results indicate that honey, fructose and sucrose significantly reduced AUC(0-t) of naringenin by 41 %, 61 % and 45 %, respectively. In vitro studies using a rabbit feces suspension to incubate naringin without or with honey or the respective sugars were employed to investigate the mechanism of this interaction. The results indicated that honey and its component sugars did not affect the rate and extent of naringin hydrolysis, whereas the degradation of naringenin was significantly enhanced in the presence of honey and fructose. It could be concluded that concomitant intake of honey, fructose and sucrose resulted in the reduction of naringin absorption which could be attributable in part to the enhanced preabsorption degradation of absorbable naringenin in the large intestine.