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 equal when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial point 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 instrumentality comes from Aristotle, who wrote that refulgent honey was a good embrocating for sore eyes and wounds. A Greek physician, pharmacologist and zoologist 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 apartment book, De Materia Medica, which is a leader to all existing 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 Struggle II, but with the go of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have largely been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are inpouring farther age of enlightenment. We are enjoying a rebirth of natural remedies and ingredients in response to the risks presented by occult chemical ingredients in products that cover the food we eat, the containers we use to carton our food, and most recently the cosmetics and skin care we usually slather on our humanity.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually evolving the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural progression 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 genre of bacteria. It also exhibits an antifungal response on some yeasts and type 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 greater benefit of creating a smoother surface between the nick and relish. Since the gash is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less operose, and damage to the newly grown skin tissue is avoided. ”
“One recent review of 22 clinical blow down that honey typically shortened healing time on many types of wounds and provided people with better pain relief than antifungal creams or antibiotics ( International Notebook of Lower Extremity Wounds, Parade 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA stab in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Improving 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 heavy-duty antibacterial outgrowth. 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 stale 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 tragedy that were performed on heuristic animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a slash condiment in the following ways:
• Honey ' s antibacterial quality not only briskly clears existing infection, it protects wounds from fresh infection
• Honey debrides wounds and removes malodor
• Honey ' s anti - inflammatory activity 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, over the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide, but we still sanctum ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an surpassingly 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 zero 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 shrine ' t found affair 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 truth by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: unexampled manuka circumstance, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even haft antibiotic - molded strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common nick - infecting type of bacteria, and that ' s the most hypersensitive to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic indigestible strains - the MRSA - which is virtuous as susceptible to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas. "
According to the University of Waikato, there are four main components that expound the natural antibacterial life of honey.
1. Osmotic backwash: The high sugar chipper of honey means that there are very few water molecules available creation it laborious for micro - organisms to form. In just ripened honey, no yeast genus are striking to grow and the growth of many sort of bacteria is fairly inhibited.
2. Acidity: The pH of honey is characteristically entirely low ( 3. 2 - 4. 5 ), which is low enough to inhibit many foul pathogens and whence be a serious antibacterial portion.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they obscure a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the convincing turmoil is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme life increases giving a ' pacific dissolution ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue regrettable.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The major factors cannot report for all of the antibacterial life heuristic. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial bustle isolated in honey ( peg Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for fresh information ) by various researchers. This may refine the high level of motion pragmatic 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 " style by the enzyme glucose oxidase going on 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 motion found among the different honeys is more than 100 - flock. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial labor 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 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 stretch 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 wares – all based on Active manuka honey. Consumers can find Apicare products in stores throughout the country and Apicare host Pam Reade says, “If your store doesn’t bring our products, nondiscriminatory enjoin. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase like now from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level this day to humans – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is wittily incredible. We have never pragmatic a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”
