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 ethical when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial board 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 luminous honey was a good liniment 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 niche book, De Materia Medica, which is a ruler to all fashionable 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 Police action II, but with the ascendancy of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have largely been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are inbound augmented age of enlightenment. We are enjoying a rebirth of natural remedies and ingredients in response to the risks presented by dubitable chemical ingredients in products that build the food we eat, the containers we use to box our food, and most recently the cosmetics and skin care we generally slather on our mankind.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually flowering the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural advancing 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 sort 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 larger benefit of creating a smoother surface between the incision and flavouring. Since the slash is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less rigid, and damage to the newly grown skin tissue is avoided. ”
“One recent review of 22 clinical blow nailed 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 Logbook of Lower Extremity Wounds, Pace 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA criterion in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Usable 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 able-bodied antibacterial causatum. 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 nick when done in as a sweetener. ) ”
The study Dr. Weil refers to included 22 blow involving 2, 062 patients treated with honey, as well as an fresh 16 trouble that were performed on seen animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a cleft impudence 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 bustle 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 temple ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an inordinately 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 truth, 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 nix like that ever been found anywhere else in the world. We know it has a very broad spectrum of bustle. It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We altar ' t found concern 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 absoluteness by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: different manuka element, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even hilt antibiotic - sinewy strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common incision - infecting type of bacteria, and that ' s the most susceptible to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic flinty strains - the MRSA - which is tried as allergic 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 follow up: The high sugar upbeat of honey means that there are very few water molecules available manufacture it arduous for micro - organisms to form. In purely ripened honey, no yeast genus are resultant to grow and the growth of many sort of bacteria is absolutely inhibited.
2. Acidity: The pH of honey is characteristically absolutely low ( 3. 2 - 4. 5 ), which is low enough to inhibit many gross pathogens and ergo be a compelling antibacterial fixin's.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they bury a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the wicked racket is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme exertion increases giving a ' waveless sleep ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue afflicted.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The most factors cannot report for all of the antibacterial liveliness practical. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial activity isolated in honey ( look at Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for more information ) by various researchers. This may solve the high level of labor observed 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 present in honey, which can vary widely in potency. Some honeys are no more antibacterial than sugar, while others can be diluted more than 100 - parish and still halt the growth of bacteria. The difference in potency of antibacterial exercise found among the different honeys is more than 100 - canton. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial movement ever practical 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 wares 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 season that Apicare’s Manuka honey personal care products are being offered in the United States. Apicare. snare 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 hotelkeeper Pam Reade says, “If your store doesn’t manage our products, honest needle. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase immediately from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level instanter to mortals – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is smartly incredible. We have never pragmatic a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”
