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Bee venom could help reduce inflammation in patients with chronic back pain, researchers claim.

While bee venom has long been used in traditional therapies to treat a wide range of aliments, an increasing number of studies indicate that honeybee stings can also be useful in modern medicine.

A clinical trial conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina found that bee venom found reduce back and leg pain by up to two-thirds.  However, because other treatments were used in the study, researchers could not pinpoint the exact magnitude of venom itself had on reducing pain.

Additional studies from the University of Exeter found that bee venom contained compounds that could ease joint pain.

Scientists are preparing a new trial to compare bee venom injections with salt-water injections in reducing chronic lower back pain, according to the Daily Mail.

Scientists will reportedly turn dried been venom into a gel and inject it into ten different traditional acupuncture sites in the lower back.

The new clinical trial will be conducted at the University Hospital of Gangdong, Korea. The study will include 100 patients.  Half of the participants will receive the bee venom treatment while the others will receive placebo saline injections, and both groups will receive a total of six treatment sessions over the span of three weeks.

Another larger trial, which will consist of more than 300 patients, will look at the effect of died bee venom on osteoarthritis of the knee.  According to the Daily Mail, the patients in the second study will have up to 20 knee injections over a 12-week period. A third of the patients will receive a placebo, and at the end of the trial, pain levels will be analyzed and compared.

"There is lots of anecdotal evidence that bee venom can be used to treat inflammatory arthritis and also reduce the pain associated with arthritis," a spokeswoman for Arthritis Research UK said, according to Daily Mail. "There is also some scientific evidence from animal studies that this may be achieved by reducing inflammation and pain signaling."

"However, there has not yet been a robust clinical trial to prove bee venom is an effective treatment for musculoskeletal pain," the charity spokeswoman added.  "This new Korean study may provide evidence about whether bee venom could be a useful treatment for joint pain."