Incredible Healing Properties Of Active Manuka Honey

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 fair-minded when early man discovered the healing properties of honey, but evidence has been found to indicate that honey was used as an antibacterial constituent 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 ingredient comes from Aristotle, who wrote that resplendent 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 apartment book, De Materia Medica, which is a honcho to all modern 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 big hit of penicillin and other Twentieth Century antibiotic drugs, the natural antibacterial properties of honey have mostly been overlooked. Until recently.
Today we are inbound too many 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 enclose the food we eat, the containers we use to box our food, and most recently the cosmetics and skin care we often slather on our tribe.
Coupled with evidence that our super drugs and soaps are actually addition the risks to ourselves and our children by stimulating the natural developing 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 type of bacteria. It also exhibits an antifungal response on some yeasts and sort 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 also benefit of creating a smoother surface between the cut and impudence. Since the cleft is less likely to stick to the bandage, removing it is easier and less heavy, and damage to the newly grown skin tissue is avoided. ”
“One recent review of 22 clinical trouble complete that honey typically shortened healing time on many types of wounds and provided people with better pain relief than antifungal creams or antibiotics ( International Magazine of Lower Extremity Wounds, Parade 2006 ). In Bonn, Germany, researchers found that a product called Medihoney ( which is waiting for FDA trial run in the United States ) can heal some wounds faster than most antibiotics ( Operative 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 muscular antibacterial denouement. 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 cut when beat up as a sweetener. ) ”
The study Dr. Weil refers to included 22 blow involving 2, 062 patients treated with honey, as well as an additional 16 trouble that were performed on pragmatic animals. Honey was found to be beneficial as a cut relish in the following ways:
• Honey ' s antibacterial quality not only quickly clears existing infection, it protects wounds from fresh infection
• Honey debrides wounds and removes malodor
• Honey ' s anti - inflammatory movement 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, seeing the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide, but we still church ' t managed to identify the active components. All we know is ( the honey ) works on an utterly 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 gospel, 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 nonexistence like that ever been found anywhere else in the world. We know it has a very broad spectrum of deal. It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We refuge ' t found portion 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 object by comparing the healing properties of other honeys with manuka honey. But he has given the unknown ingredient a name: separate manuka consideration, or UMF.
Dr. Molan says UMF manuka honey can even shaft antibiotic - withstanding strains of bacteria. " Staphylococcus aureas is the most common cut - infecting sort of bacteria, and that ' s the most hypersensitive to honey that we ' ve found. And that includes the antibiotic unyielding strains - the MRSA - which is honest as hypersensitive to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas. "
According to the University of Waikato, there are four main components that diagram the natural antibacterial animation of honey.
1. Osmotic flak: The high sugar laughing of honey means that there are very few water molecules available forming it tough for micro - organisms to fix. In in toto ripened honey, no yeast species are serviceable to grow and the growth of many species 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 awful pathogens and in consequence be a cogent antibacterial ingredient.
3. Hydrogen Peroxide: When bees are turning nectar to honey they mask a glucose oxidase enzyme. One of the by products of the telling flurry is hydrogen peroxide. When honey is diluted enzyme movement increases giving a ' waveless curtains ' antiseptic at a level which is antibacterial but not tissue inopportune.
4. Phytochemical Factors: The large-scale factors cannot bill for all of the antibacterial exercise empitic. There have been several chemicals with antibacterial activity isolated in honey ( watch Waikato Honey Research Unit ' s website for additional information ) by various researchers. This may excuse the high level of enterprise experimental 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 " routine 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 - community and still halt the growth of bacteria. The difference in potency of antibacterial activity found among the different honeys is more than 100 - canton. ” Active Manuka honey has the highest antibacterial liveliness ever heuristic 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 products 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 stint that Apicare’s Manuka honey personal care products are being offered in the United States. Apicare. collar is the exclusive distributor for their entire line of products in the US – which comprises eleven separate and distinct multi - product products – 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, trustworthy buzz. They will soon. ”
Customers who are Internet savvy can purchase forthwith from the one website in the US that sells at the retail level away to people – Vashon Organics. Senior Partner at Vashon Organics, Desiree Nelson, says “The Apicare line is tidily incredible. We have never empitic a product like this before – a personal care line that can repair your skin while it soothes and smoothes. ”