Incredible Healing Properties Of Active Manuka Honey
Honey has been used throughout the ages as a medicinal treatment for wounds and other topical skin conditions. We don’t know conscientious when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial constituent by ancient Egyptians thousands of years before bacteria were discovered to be the cause of infections.
One of our first written accounts of using honey as a healing aspect comes from Aristotle, who wrote that brilliant honey was a good liniment for sore eyes and wounds. A Greek physician, pharmacologist and ecologist named Pedanius Dioscorides, who practiced in Rome around the time of Nero, traveled extensively throughout the Greek and Roman empires in search of medicinal substances. He is famous for writing a five pad book, De Materia Medica, which is a number one to all fashionable pharmacopeias and continues to this day to be one of the most influential books on herbal remedies in history. In his writings, Dioscorides described honey as being " good for all rotten and cave ulcers ".
Honey was still being used to treat wounds up through World Conflict II, but with the successfulness of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have chiefly been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are inward wider age of enlightenment. We are enjoying a rebirth of natural remedies and ingredients in response to the risks presented by uncertain chemical ingredients in products that interpolate the food we eat, the containers we use to container our food, and most recently the cosmetics and skin care we much slather on our general public.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually evolving the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural addition of super - bugs – bacteria that are becoming resistant to even the strongest of our antibacterials – the shift to effective natural remedies is becoming a stampede.
Honey has been found to inhibit some 60 genus of bacteria. It also exhibits an antifungal response on some yeasts and style of Aspergillus and Penicillium, two of the most common. Dr. Andrew Weil says in his November, 2006 newsletter Self Healing “Honey’s antibacterial properties, due in part to its hydrogen peroxide content, help to quickly clear an infection and prevent new ones from developing. Honey stimulates the growth of skin tissue, reduces inflammation, and minimizes scarring, and it has the other benefit of creating a smoother surface between the nick and impudence. Since the incision is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less stiff, and damage to the newly grown skin tissue is avoided. ”
“One recent review of 22 clinical catastrophe over that honey typically shortened healing time on many types of wounds and provided people with better pain relief than antifungal creams or antibiotics ( International Diary of Lower Extremity Wounds, Tread 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA substantiation in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Essential Care in Cancer, January 2006 ). Medihoney is made of different types of honey native to New Zealand and Australia, including manuka honey, which has a particularly mighty antibacterial conclusion. Honey can also be a useful treatment for people who have built up a tolerance to certain antibiotics. ( I know of no evidence that honey helps to heal gash when run-down as a sweetener. ) ”
The study Dr. Weil refers to included 22 catastrophe involving 2, 062 patients treated with honey, as well as an further 16 calamity that were performed on seen animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a slash condiment in the following ways:
• Honey ' s antibacterial quality not only hastily clears existing infection, it protects wounds from more infection
• Honey debrides wounds and removes malodor
• Honey ' s anti - inflammatory hustle reduces edema and minimizes scarring
• Honey stimulates growth of granulation and epithelial tissues to speed healing
The review article for the study was written by Dr. Peter Molan, director of the Honey Research Unit at New Zealand ' s University of Waikato. Dr. Molan says " All honey is antibacterial, owing to the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide, but we still temple ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an markedly broad spectrum. "
Dr. Molan’s research has shown that honey made from the flowers of the Manuka tree ( Leptospermum scoparium ), a bushy tree native to New Zealand, has antibacterial properties that are much higher than any other honeys’. In actuality, Dr. Molan estimates that active manuka honey could exhibit healing properties up to 100 times more than other honeys.
Dr. Molan says " In all honeys, there is, to different levels, hydrogen peroxide produced from an enzyme that bees add to the nectar. In manuka honey, there ' s something else besides the hydrogen peroxide. And there ' s nonexistence like that ever been found anywhere else in the world. We know it has a very broad spectrum of bag. It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We church ' t found substance it doesn ' t work on among infectious organisms. "
After nineteen years of research, the “something else” Dr. Molan refers to remains unknown. He has been unable to identify it, even while observing its solidity by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: particular manuka instrumentality, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even grip antibiotic - stout strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common slash - infecting sort of bacteria, and that ' s the most averse to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic steeled strains - the MRSA - which is aloof as hypersensitive to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas. "
According to the University of Waikato, there are four main components that manifest the natural antibacterial movement of honey.
1. Osmotic backlash: The high sugar joyful of honey means that there are very few water molecules available forging it onerous for micro - organisms to form. In utterly ripened honey, no yeast species are powerhouse to grow and the growth of many species of bacteria is totally inhibited.
2. Acidity: The pH of honey is characteristically fairly low ( 3. 2 - 4. 5 ), which is low enough to inhibit many repugnant pathogens and hence be a momentous antibacterial agent.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they cloak a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the compelling functioning is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme movement increases giving a ' halcyon dissolution ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue unhappy.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The main factors cannot account for all of the antibacterial enterprise empirical. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial motion isolated in honey ( glom Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for fresh information ) by various researchers. This may decipher the high level of movement heuristic in Manuka honey.
The University’s Honey Research Unit adds “Honey has an antibacterial enterprise, due primarily to hydrogen peroxide formed in a " slow - release " system by the enzyme glucose oxidase contemporary in honey, which can vary widely in potency. Some honeys are no more antibacterial than sugar, while others can be diluted more than 100 - community and still halt the growth of bacteria. The difference in potency of antibacterial animation found among the different honeys is more than 100 - commune. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial bustle ever heuristic in a honey.
Apicare / Honey & Herbs Ltd of Auckland, New Zealand, recognized the healing benefits of applying manuka honey to the epidermis and created an entire line of products that incorporate the antibacterial properties to their best advantage. Apicare’s merchandise of lotions, balms, creams, moisturizers, shampoos and conditioners all use Active manuka honey as a base. Not surprisingly, the results are as astonishing as the research would seem to predict.
2006 marks the first infinity that Apicare’s Manuka honey personal care products are being offered in the United States. Apicare. entangle is the exclusive distributor for their entire line of products in the US – which comprises eleven separate and distinct multi - product goods – all based on Active manuka honey. Consumers can find Apicare products in stores throughout the country and Apicare lessor Pam Reade says, “If your store doesn’t carry our products, rightful strike. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase away from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level instantly to mortals – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is plainly incredible. We have never empirical a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”
