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 dependable when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial makin's 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 influence comes from Aristotle, who wrote that well-lighted honey was a good ointment for sore eyes and wounds. A Greek physician, pharmacologist and naturalist 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 principal to all voguish 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 War II, but with the success of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have principally been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are inward spare age of enlightenment. We are enjoying a rebirth of natural remedies and ingredients in response to the risks presented by unconfirmed chemical ingredients in products that allow for the food we eat, the containers we use to container our food, and most recently the cosmetics and skin care we oftentimes slather on our mortals.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually ongoing the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural spreading 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 more benefit of creating a smoother surface between the cut and flavouring. Since the gash is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less exacting, and damage to the newly grown skin tissue is avoided. ”
“One recent review of 22 clinical catastrophe through 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, Footslog 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA test in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Helpful 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 brawny antibacterial sequence. 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 slash when overworked as a sweetener. ) ”
The study Dr. Weil refers to included 22 trouble involving 2, 062 patients treated with honey, as well as an further 16 disaster that were performed on observed animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a incision impudence in the following ways:
• Honey ' s antibacterial quality not only fast clears existing infection, it protects wounds from supplementary infection
• Honey debrides wounds and removes malodor
• Honey ' s anti - inflammatory life 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, for the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide, but we still sanctuary ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an awfully 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 reality, 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 blank like that ever been found anywhere else in the world. We know it has a very broad spectrum of animation. It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We altar ' t found body 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 tangibility by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: onliest manuka constituent, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even shaft antibiotic - tight strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common cut - infecting genre of bacteria, and that ' s the most hypersensitive to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic boxy strains - the MRSA - which is equal as hypersensitive to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas. "
According to the University of Waikato, there are four main components that justify the natural antibacterial bustle of honey.
1. Osmotic follow up: The high sugar pleased of honey means that there are very few water molecules available forming it hard for micro - organisms to rivet. In without reservation ripened honey, no yeast sort are serviceable to grow and the growth of many genus of bacteria is quite inhibited.
2. Acidity: The pH of honey is characteristically fully low ( 3. 2 - 4. 5 ), which is low enough to inhibit many grotesque pathogens and consequently be a pregnant antibacterial agency.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they salt away a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the energetic action is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme liveliness increases giving a ' quiescent passing ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue unfavorable.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The main factors cannot invoice for all of the antibacterial movement experimental. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial labor isolated in honey ( scope Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for more information ) by various researchers. This may interpret the high level of exercise empirical in Manuka honey.
The University’s Honey Research Unit adds “Honey has an antibacterial motion, due primarily to hydrogen peroxide formed in a " slow - release " routine by the enzyme glucose oxidase in process in honey, which can vary widely in potency. Some honeys are no more antibacterial than sugar, while others can be diluted more than 100 - flock and still halt the growth of bacteria. The difference in potency of antibacterial action found among the different honeys is more than 100 - commune. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial bustle ever observed 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 pace that Apicare’s Manuka honey personal care products are being offered in the United States. Apicare. net is the exclusive distributor for their entire line of products in the US – which comprises eleven separate and distinct multi - product produce – all based on Active manuka honey. Consumers can find Apicare products in stores throughout the country and Apicare innkeeper Pam Reade says, “If your store doesn’t take our products, blameless hit. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase these days from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level like now to nation – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is tidily incredible. We have never pragmatic a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”
