5 Medical Honey Facts

1. Most honey has antibacterial properties, but Australia’s Manuka Bioactive Honeys are especially potent.
2. Australia’s Manuka Honey is harvested from Leptospermum polygalifolium, (or Active Jellybush Honey), a member of the Myrtle Family of plants.
3. A relative of Jellybush is Leptospermum scoparium commonly called Manuka is found occurring in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and New Zealand.
4. Apiarists in Australia are discovering vast sources of Australia’s Manuka known as Active Jellybush Honey.
5. The complete benefits of this Medical Grade Honey is yet to be fully understood by scientists, but research continues.

Honey Research Article – for the more academic minded.

Indeed, medicinal importance of honey has been documented in the world’s oldest medical literatures, and since the ancient times, it has been known to possess antimicrobial property as well as wound-healing activity. The healing property of honey is due to the fact that it offers antibacterial activity, maintains a moist wound condition, and its high viscosity helps to provide a protective barrier to prevent infection. Its immunomodulatory property is relevant to wound repair too. The antimicrobial activity in most honeys is due to the enzymatic production of hydrogen peroxide. However, another kind of honey, called non-peroxide honey (viz., manuka honey), displays significant antibacterial effects even when the hydrogen peroxide activity is blocked. Its mechanism may be related to the low pH level of honey and its high sugar content (high osmolarity) that is enough to hinder the growth of microbes. The medical grade honeys have potent in vitro bactericidal activity against antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing several life-threatening infections to humans. But, there is a large variation in the antimicrobial activity of some natural honeys, which is due to spatial and temporal variation in sources of nectar. Thus, identification and characterization of the active principle(s) may provide valuable information on the quality and possible therapeutic potential of honeys (against several health disorders of humans), and hence we discussed the medicinal property of honeys with emphasis on their antibacterial activities.
Keywords: Honey, Antibacterial activity, Wound healing property, Glucose oxidase, Non-peroxide effect, Medical-grade honey, Antimicrobial agents, Medicinal property, Antimicrobial property, Immunomodulatory property

 

Source & Full Article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/