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 upright when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial means 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 fixin's comes from Aristotle, who wrote that burnished honey was a good emollient 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 niche book, De Materia Medica, which is a harbinger 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 pothole ulcers ".
Honey was still being used to treat wounds up through World Police action II, but with the boom of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have chiefly been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are penetrating amassed age of enlightenment. We are enjoying a rebirth of natural remedies and ingredients in response to the risks presented by indecisive 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 recurrently slather on our riffraff.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually increase the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural addition 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 genus 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 other benefit of creating a smoother surface between the slash and relish. Since the nick is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less difficult, and damage to the newly grown skin tissue is avoided. ”
“One recent review of 22 clinical calamity completed 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, Hike 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA quiz in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Important 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 unyielding antibacterial response. 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 dog-tired as a sweetener. ) ”
The study Dr. Weil refers to included 22 adversity involving 2, 062 patients treated with honey, as well as an further 16 blow that were performed on practical animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a gash relish in the following ways:
• Honey ' s antibacterial quality not only quickly clears existing infection, it protects wounds from more infection
• Honey debrides wounds and removes malodor
• Honey ' s anti - inflammatory exertion 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 temple ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an radically 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 detail, 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 zippo like that ever been found anywhere else in the world. We know it has a very broad spectrum of haste. It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We altar ' t found means 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 deed by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: unrepeated manuka point, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even grip antibiotic - rugged strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common wound - infecting type of bacteria, and that ' s the most susceptible to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic planished strains - the MRSA - which is righteous as hypersensitive to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas. "
According to the University of Waikato, there are four main components that put across the natural antibacterial exercise of honey.
1. Osmotic waves: The high sugar gay of honey means that there are very few water molecules available creation it difficult for micro - organisms to build. In absolutely ripened honey, no yeast type are play hardball to grow and the growth of many type of bacteria is totally inhibited.
2. Acidity: The pH of honey is characteristically fully low ( 3. 2 - 4. 5 ), which is low enough to inhibit many haglike pathogens and since be a suggestive antibacterial thing.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they eclipse a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the competent haste is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme activity increases giving a ' serene end ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue unsuitable.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The higher factors cannot account for all of the antibacterial motion empitic. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial movement isolated in honey ( look Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for additional information ) by various researchers. This may get across the high level of movement empirical in Manuka honey.
The University’s Honey Research Unit adds “Honey has an antibacterial action, due primarily to hydrogen peroxide formed in a " slow - release " system by the enzyme glucose oxidase in duration in honey, which can vary widely in potency. Some honeys are no more antibacterial than sugar, while others can be diluted more than 100 - canton and still halt the growth of bacteria. The difference in potency of antibacterial hustle found among the different honeys is more than 100 - flock. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial motion 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 pace that Apicare’s Manuka honey personal care products are being offered in the United States. Apicare. enmesh 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 landlord Pam Reade says, “If your store doesn’t bring our products, lawful needle. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase double time from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level right now to persons – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is neatly incredible. We have never heuristic a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”
