Honey was a conventional therapy in fighting infection up
until the early 20th century, at which time its use slowly vanished with the
advent of penicillin.
Now the use of honey in wound care is regaining popularity
again, as researchers are determining exactly how honey can help fight serious
skin infections.
According to their findings, certain types of honey might be
more effective than antibiotics!
After any skin injury, bacteria that live on your skin can
infect and penetrate the wound site.
One particularly common type of strep (Streptococcus
pyogenes) can result in wounds that refuse to heal.
But honey, especially the kind made by bees foraging on
manuka flowers, was found to destroy these bacteria.
Scientific American
recently reported i:
"In lab tests, just a bit of the honey killed off the
majority of bacterial cells -- and cut down dramatically on the stubborn
biofilms they formed.
It could also be used to prevent wounds from becoming
infected in the first place."
According to the
authors of the study,
"These findings indicate that manuka honey has potential
in the topical treatment of wounds containing S. pyogenes." ii
Should You Dress Your
Wounds with Honey?
As long as you use the right kind of honey, science does back
up its use for wound treatment, which is especially relevant today as
antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are on the rise.
Five years ago, the FDA authorized the first honey-based
medical product for use in the US. Derma Sciences uses Manuka honey for their
Medihoney wound and burn dressings, which can be found online from medical
supply stores. Amazon.com also sells them. These products can also be found in
Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
When considering using honey for the treatment of wounds,
it's extremely important to understand that there's a major difference between
raw honey—and especially Manuka honey, which is in a class of its own—and the
highly processed "Grade A" type honey you find in most grocery
stores. The latter is more akin to high fructose corn syrup, which is more
likely to increase infection, and should never be used to treat topical wounds!
(It also will not offer you the same health benefits as raw honey when
consumed.)
Manuka honey, on the other hand, is made with pollen gathered
from the flowers of the Manuka bush (a medicinal plant), and clinical trials
have found this type of honey can effectively eradicate more than 250 clinical
strains of bacteria, including resistant varieties such as:
MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
MSSA (methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus)
VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci)
Compared to other types of honey, Manuka has an extra
ingredient with antimicrobial qualities, called the Unique Manuka Factor (UMF).
It is so called because no one has yet been able to discover the unique
substance involved that gives it its extraordinary antibacterial activity.
Honey releases hydrogen peroxide through an enzymatic process, which explains
its general antiseptic qualities, but Active Manuka honey contains
"something else" that makes it far superior to other types of honey
when it comes to killing off bacteria.
The level of UMF can vary between batches, so each batch is
ranked and priced accordingly. The higher the concentration of UMF, the darker,
thicker, and more expensive it is.
To determine its rating, a sample of the honey batch is placed
on a plate with a bacterial culture. The area where the bacterial growth stops
is then measured. This area is compared to a similar area produced by a
solution of phenol and water. The UMF number refers to the equivalent
percentage of phenol in water, so, for example, honey with a UMF rating of 10
has the same antibacterial strength as 10 percent phenol. A rating of UMF 10 or
higher is recommended for medicinal use.
Evidence Supporting Use
of Honey against Infectious Bacteria
Aside from the featured study, many others confirm the
soundness of using good-old-fashioned honey for the treatment of bacterial and
fungal infections. For example, a 1992 study found that honey sped up the
healing of caesarean sections iii, iv. Another study found that honey cured the
intractable wounds of 59 patients, and it's been known to help heal everything
from ulcers to sunburn. According to the International Journal of Lower
Extremity Wounds, positive findings on honey in wound care have been reported
from v:
17 randomized controlled trials involving a total of 1965
participants
Five clinical trials of other forms involving 97 participants
16 trials on a total of 533 wounds on experimental animals
A study published in the summer of 2009 also found that
chronic rhinosinusitis sufferers might benefit from honey vi. In 11 isolates of
three separate biofilms, honey was found to be significantly more effective
than commonly-used antibiotics in killing both planktonic and biofilm-grown
forms of pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and staphylococcus aureus (SA), two
important factors in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS).
The findings may hold important clinical implications in the
treatment of CRS, which affects 31 million people each year in the United
States alone, and is among the three most common chronic diseases in North
America.
Helpful Additions to
Your Home First Aid Kit
If you're considering using honey to treat a mild burn,
sunburn, or small wound at home, make sure to use either Manuka or raw honey.
Like the Manuka honey, high quality RAW honey will help draw fluid away from
your wound and suppress the growth of microorganisms. Part of what gives raw
honey its antibacterial properties is an enzyme called glucose oxidase, which
the worker bees excrete into the nectar. This enzyme releases low levels of
hydrogen peroxide when the honey makes contact with your wound. A chemical
reaction between the honey and the tissue also makes your wound smell good.
Heated honey will destroy this perishable enzyme which is why you want to only
use raw honey for this application.
For your home care kit, two other natural wound dressings
that offer impressive results without drugs are Duoderm and HemCon bandages.
The HemCon bandages are made from a natural protein found in shrimp shells,
which not only promotes clotting, but also offer an effective antibacterial
barrier against microorganisms such as MRSA and VRE—two common
antibiotic-resistant strains.
While the focus of this article is on the topical uses and
benefits of honey, it also has numerous health benefits when consumed in
moderation.
Unfortunately, bee populations are rapidly declining. Farmers are forced to import bees from other
countries or truck them across the states for different seasons of
produce. Toxic chemicals, genetically engineered
crops, overuse of antibiotics in animals (their waste is typically used as
fertilizer) and monoculture farming are likely the primary contributors to the
collapse of the bees.
The collapse of bee colonies should be looked at as yet
further proof of our unsustainable farming methods.
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