Honey: Simply One other Pure Sweetener?

by Dr. Michael Donaldson, PhD

Honey—a scrumptious pure sweetener. Who doesn’t like honey? Positive, it’s candy, however there may be extra to pure honey than meets the attention. Honey incorporates some minor elements that give it some stunning well being advantages. Every thing from wound therapeutic, to antibacterial results, to selling good intestine well being, and even serving to slightly bit with severe continual illnesses like most cancers.

A current overview of the bee merchandise honey, propolis and royal jelly highlighted lots of the well being advantages of honey. The highlights of honey’s advantages are taken from this text.¹

Because it states within the referenced article, “Pure honey consists of 82.4% carbohydrates, 38.5% fructose, 31% glucose, 12.9% different sugars, 17.1% water, 0.5% protein, natural acids, multiminerals, amino acids, nutritional vitamins, phenols, and a myriad of different minor compounds. As well as, honey consists of minor quantities of bioactive elements, together with phenolic acid, flavonoid, and α-tocopherol. Honey constituents with well being advantages embody phenolic acids, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, proteins, carotenoids, and sure enzymes, corresponding to glucose oxidase and catalase.”

The precise composition of the minor elements varies with locality of the honey and possibly the form of bee making the honey. A few of these elements are delicate to warmth, so it’s best to seek out uncooked honey if you’d like all its well being advantages.

Honey is used for dressing wounds. In a randomized trial of fifty burn victims, honey dressing labored higher than a silver sulfadiazine dressing. After 7 and 21 days the researchers discovered that pores and skin grew again quicker, acute irritation decreased quicker and there was higher management of an infection utilizing the honey dressing.²

Not all leg ulcers heal effectively; they are often painful and might stink after they don’t heal. After not therapeutic for at the least 12 weeks, sufferers got Medihoney dressings, together with typical care. Through the subsequent 12 weeks of care wounds healed effectively, grew to become much less odorous and fewer painful. Affected person satisfaction was excessive with the Medihoney therapy.³

Honey may be helpful for gastrointestinal well being. In vitro research have proven efficient antimicrobial exercise towards Escherichia coli, Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella enterocolitis and Shigella dysenteriae, all recognized to trigger diarrhea.⁴ Honey can stimulate the expansion of Bifidobacteria very similar to inulin and fructooligosaccharides, making it a bona fide prebiotic.⁵ Honey was additionally proven to stimulate lactobacillus progress in rats. ⁶

Honey may be good for oral well being as effectively. An in vitro examine discovered honey had antibacterial properties towards P. gingivalis, a microbe that contributes to gingivitis.⁷ It most likely has some advantages towards different doubtlessly pathogenic micro organism that hand around in the mouth.

Higher respiratory infections could cause youngsters to cough at evening, disturbing their sleep and their mother and father (those studying this). In a randomized trial of 139 youngsters a 2.5 ml (1/2 teaspoon) of honey earlier than mattress did extra for suppressing nighttime cough than two widespread medication dextromethorphan (DM) and diphenhydramine (DPH), neither of that are an excellent possibility for younger youngsters.⁸

Gastroenteritis or abdomen flu, could cause vomiting and diarrhea, particularly harmful in infants and toddlers. In a randomized trial oral rehydration resolution was made with both glucose or honey and given to 100 struggling youngsters. The honey resolution labored higher than the management for lowering vomiting and diarrhea and getting the kids to feeling regular once more.⁹

Pretreatment of Wistar Albino rats with Sundarban honey (from Bangladesh) prevented them from the signs of a chemically induced coronary heart assault. Their ranges of antioxidant enzymes have been close to regular ranges and microscopic examination of their coronary heart tissue confirmed little injury.¹⁰

Honey has additionally demonstrated some anti-cancer exercise, reviewed by Erejuwa and coworkers in 2014.¹¹ The anticancer results of honey have been studied extra completely in breast, liver and colorectal most cancers cells together with extra restricted knowledge in different most cancers cells together with prostate, bladder, endometrial, kidney, pores and skin, cervical, oral and bone most cancers cells.

So, I assume there may be extra to honey than I assumed. It doesn’t change fruits or greens in your food regimen, however it does have some constructive well being advantages. Sure, it’s costlier than it was once, and costlier than different sweeteners as effectively. However you often get what you pay for, so take into account your selections of sweeteners fastidiously. You don’t want a lot, however if you do, take into account grabbing the honey jar.

References

1. Pasupuleti VR, Sammugam L, Ramesh N, Gan SH (2017) Honey, Propolis, and Royal Jelly: A Complete Overview of Their Organic Actions and Well being Advantages. Oxid Med Cell Longev 2017:1259510. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/1259510
2. Subrahmanyam M (1998) A potential randomised scientific and histological examine of superficial burn wound therapeutic with honey and silver sulfadiazine. Burns 24:157–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-4179(97)00113-7
3. Dunford CE, Hanano R (2004) Acceptability to sufferers of a honey dressing for non-healing venous leg ulcers. J Wound Care 13:193–197. https://doi.org/10.12968/jowc.2004.13.5.26614
4. Adebolu TT (2005) Impact of pure honey on native isolates of diarrhea-causing micro organism in southwestern Nigeria. Afr J Biotechnol 4:1172–1174. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJB2005.000-3233
5. KAJIWARA S, GANDHI H, USTUNOL Z (2002) Impact of Honey on the Development of and Acid Manufacturing by Human Intestinal Bifidobacterium spp.: An In Vitro Comparability with Industrial Oligosaccharides and Inulin. J Meals Prot 65:214–218. https://doi.org/10.4315/0362-028X-65.1.214
6. Shamala T r., Shri Jyothi Y, Saibaba P (2000) Stimulatory impact of honey on multiplication of lactic acid micro organism below in vitro and in vivo situations. Lett Appl Microbiol 30:453–455. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1472-765x.2000.00746.x
7. Eick S, Schäfer G, Kwieciński J, Atrott J, Henle T, et al (2014) Honey – a possible agent towards Porphyromonas gingivalis: an in vitro examine. BMC Oral Well being 14:24. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6831-14-24
8. Shadkam MN, Mozaffari-Khosravi H, Mozayan MR (2010) A Comparability of the Impact of Honey, Dextromethorphan, and Diphenhydramine on Nightly Cough and Sleep High quality in Youngsters and Their Dad and mom. J Altern Complement Med 16:787–793. https://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2009.0311
9. Abdulrhman MA, Mekawy MA, Awadalla MM, Mohamed AH (2010) Bee Honey Added to the Oral Rehydration Resolution in Therapy of Gastroenteritis in Infants and Youngsters. J Med Meals 13:605–609. https://doi.org/10.1089/jmf.2009.0075
10. Hindawi (2016) Sundarban Honey Confers Safety towards Isoproterenol-Induced Myocardial Infarction in Wistar Rats. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2016/6437641/. Accessed 16 Sep 2022
11. Erejuwa OO, Sulaiman SA, Wahab MSA (2014) Results of Honey and Its Mechanisms of Motion on the Improvement and Development of Most cancers. Molecules 19:2497–2522. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules19022497