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 impartial when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial instrument 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 constituent comes from Aristotle, who wrote that polished honey was a good unguent for sore eyes and wounds. A Greek physician, pharmacologist and biologist 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 abode book, De Materia Medica, which is a counsellor to all current 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 den ulcers ".
Honey was still being used to treat wounds up through World Cold war II, but with the advance of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have largely been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are inward else age of enlightenment. We are enjoying a rebirth of natural remedies and ingredients in response to the risks presented by indefinite chemical ingredients in products that encompass the food we eat, the containers we use to carton our food, and most recently the cosmetics and skin care we oftentimes slather on our public.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually progression the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural hike 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 genre 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 in addition benefit of creating a smoother surface between the slash and condiment. Since the cleft is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less problematic, 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 Logbook of Lower Extremity Wounds, Step 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA check in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Convenient 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 durable antibacterial outcome. 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 bored as a sweetener. ) ”
The study Dr. Weil refers to included 22 tragedy involving 2, 062 patients treated with honey, as well as an further 16 tragedy that were performed on seen animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a slash sauce in the following ways:
• Honey ' s antibacterial quality not only swiftly clears existing infection, it protects wounds from supplementary infection
• Honey debrides wounds and removes malodor
• Honey ' s anti - inflammatory movement 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, in that the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide, but we still church ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an ever 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 gospel, 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 naught like that ever been found anywhere else in the world. We know it has a very broad spectrum of occupation. It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We refuge ' t found business 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 realism by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: singular manuka antecedent, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even hilt antibiotic - planished strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common incision - infecting genre of bacteria, and that ' s the most loath to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic dense strains - the MRSA - which is nondiscriminatory as hypersensitive to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas. "
According to the University of Waikato, there are four main components that expound the natural antibacterial action of honey.
1. Osmotic side effect: The high sugar gay of honey means that there are very few water molecules available moulding it hard for micro - organisms to station. In in truth ripened honey, no yeast genre are effective to grow and the growth of many genre of bacteria is totally inhibited.
2. Acidity: The pH of honey is characteristically quite low ( 3. 2 - 4. 5 ), which is low enough to inhibit many plug pathogens and therefrom be a pregnant antibacterial instrumentality.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they eclipse a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the producing power is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme animation increases giving a ' at peace exit ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue unbecoming.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The primary factors cannot balance for all of the antibacterial enterprise experimental. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial motion isolated in honey ( scope Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for supplementary information ) by various researchers. This may teach the high level of activity observed in Manuka honey.
The University’s Honey Research Unit adds “Honey has an antibacterial labor, due primarily to hydrogen peroxide formed in a " slow - release " practice by the enzyme glucose oxidase up-to-date in honey, which can vary widely in potency. Some honeys are no more antibacterial than sugar, while others can be diluted more than 100 - commune and still halt the growth of bacteria. The difference in potency of antibacterial exercise found among the different honeys is more than 100 - flock. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial life ever empitic 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 goods 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 span that Apicare’s Manuka honey personal care products are being offered in the United States. Apicare. collar is the exclusive distributor for their entire line of products in the US – which comprises eleven separate and distinct multi - product commodities – 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, rigid pump. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase straightaway from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level just now to persons – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is aptly incredible. We have never experimental a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”
