Honey: Simply One other Pure Sweetener?

by Dr. Michael Donaldson, PhD

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

A current evaluation 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 parts, 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, comparable to glucose oxidase and catalase.”

The precise composition of the minor parts varies with locality of the honey and doubtless the form of bee making the honey. A few of these parts are delicate to warmth, so it’s best to search 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 nicely; they are often painful and may stink after they don’t heal. After not therapeutic for not less than 12 weeks, sufferers got Medihoney dressings, together with regular care. Throughout the subsequent 12 weeks of care wounds healed nicely, turned much less odorous and fewer painful. Affected person satisfaction was excessive with the Medihoney remedy.³

Honey may be useful for gastrointestinal well being. In vitro research have proven efficient antimicrobial exercise in opposition to 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 development in rats. ⁶

Honey may be good for oral well being as nicely. An in vitro examine discovered honey had antibacterial properties in opposition to P. gingivalis, a microbe that contributes to gingivitis.⁷ It in all probability has some advantages in opposition to 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 frequent medicine dextromethorphan (DM) and diphenhydramine (DPH), neither of that are a superb choice 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 youngsters 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’s extra to honey than I believed. It doesn’t substitute fruits or greens in your food plan, nevertheless it does have some optimistic well being advantages. Sure, it’s dearer than it was once, and dearer than different sweeteners as nicely. However you normally get what you pay for, so think about your decisions of sweeteners rigorously. You don’t want a lot, however whenever you do, think about 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 Progress 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 beneath 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 in opposition to 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 Kids and Their Mother and father. 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 Answer in Therapy of Gastroenteritis in Infants and Kids. J Med Meals 13:605–609. https://doi.org/10.1089/jmf.2009.0075
10. Hindawi (2016) Sundarban Honey Confers Safety in opposition to 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 Growth and Development of Most cancers. Molecules 19:2497–2522. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules19022497