Will taking bee pollen make a difference in your health? Or should you ignore the stories told by pollen pushers? Here are more pollen propaganda and the truth behind the claims.

CLAIM: Bee pollen is a pure vegetable source, is rich in protein and vitamins, and contains an unbelievable concentration of vital elements, making it the most complete food in nature.

FACT: More lies cooked up by pollen promoters. In The Best Medicine, Kurt Butler and Dr. Lynn Rayner of the University of Hawaii said the nutritional value of pollen varies greatly depending on the flower it was taken from, its location and the time of the year. This makes it difficult to determine whether it is nutritious or not.

While pollen may contain fats, protein, vitamins and minerals, its main ingredient is sugar which accounts for at least 50 percent of its weight. This hardly makes it a "complete food."

Moreover, commercially processed pollen go through all sorts of patented cleaning and packaging operations before it is sold. How this affects its nutritive value is unknown.

CLAIM: Pollen contains all the essential elements for a healthy body and can prevent cancer.

FACT: If that were true, bees should get a Nobel Prize for find¬ing a way to stop or prevent cancer. To this day, however, a cancer cure has yet to be found. And as far as I know, the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute are not endorsing pollen.

CLAIM: The world's healthiest and most long-lived people are the Hunzas who live in the Himalayan Mountains, the people in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia, and those who live in the mountains of Vilcabamba in Ecuador. These people are staple eaters of pollen.

FACT: Stories of long life are often difficult to prove because of the absence of records. This problem applies to the people of the Hunza Valley in India who have no written language and no baptismal certificates. Thus, it is impossible to verify whether the valley's elderly inhabitants are really that old.

But even if we take the Hunzakats' word for it that some of them live to be 140 years old, we cannot attribute their longevity solely to pollen.

Dr. Alexander Leaf, chief of the medical services of the Massachusetts General Hospital, said the typical Hunzakat's diet consists mainly of grain, leafy vegetables, potatoes, peas. beans, fresh milk, fruits and wine. No mention was made of pollen.

In addition to this, he added that "the Hunzakats exercise strenuously, walking many miles a day. In the course of their work they are often forced to carry heavy loads up and down the steep slopes of their countryside." Knowing this, it seems unlikely that pollen played a role in their longevity.

The people of Vilcabamba and the Caucasus are no different. Laurence E. Gadd and the editors of The World Almanac said the former are farmers who work into their '90s.

"People of all ages are physically very active. They live on low calorie diets, particularly low in animal fats and proteins. Typical meals include beans, corn, potatoes, bananas, soup, bread, fruits (such as papaya, orange and grapes), and very little meat," they reported. Again, pollen was not mentioned as a staple food of the Vilcabamba diet.

The citizens of Caucasus, on the other hand, subsist on milk, vegetables, meat and fruits. They are also mountain people whose daily work entails a great deal of physical exertion.

In the face of these facts, it isn't hard to deduce that exercise and the right diet - not pollen - figure prominently in long-lived people.

What about the other claims made for bee pollen? Do they have any scientific basis? Find out in the third part of this series. To strengthen your body, take Immunitril – your first line of defense in maintaining a healthy immune system. For details, visit