Honey as a Dressing for Wounds, Burns, and Ulcers (Part 1).

Honey - A Healing Power.

Most people think of honey as the sweet, sticky stuff you put on toast or drop into hot tea, but in recent years, researchers have been exploring its potential in other ways.

Honey as a Dressing for Wounds, Burns, and Ulcers: A Brief Review of Clinical Reports and Experimental Studies.

Summary.

The use of honey as a wound dressing material, an ancient remedy that has been rediscovered, is becoming of increasing interest as more reports of its effectiveness are published.

Some of these include:

• To lessen the ill effects of radiation therapy in patients with cancer of the head and neck.
• To improve oral health.
• To preserve food.
• To boost antioxidants.
• To enhance athletic performance.

The clinical observations recorded are that infection is rapidly cleared, inflammation, swelling and pain are quickly reduced, odour is reduced, sloughing of necrotic tissue is induced, granulation and epithelialisation are hastened, and healing occurs rapidly with minimal scarring.

The antimicrobial properties of honey prevent microbial growth in the moist healing environment created.

Today, the general public is showing more of an interest in honey, both in the kitchen and outside of the kitchen. This includes the use of honey as a folk remedy for ailments such as cuts and scraps. This is due in part to the current trend with natural remedies and foods and a throwback to ancient times when honey was used as a wonder healer, laxative, cough and sore-throat balm and a salve for sore eyes, among other things.

Unlike other topical antiseptics, honey causes no tissue damage: in animal studies it has been demonstrated histologically that it actually promotes the healing process. It has a direct nutrient effect as well as drawing lymph out to the cells by osmosis.

The stimulation of healing may also be due to the acidity of honey. The osmosis creates a solution of honey in contact with the wound surface which prevents the dressing sticking, so there is no pain or tissue damage when dressings are changed.

At the University of Illinois, honey has been the focus of several studies. One study showed that honey, when mixed with ground turkey, slows the oxidation process that gives it that leftover taste after a few days. They also found that honey has the same level of antioxidants as some fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants are thought to thwart the process by which fats in food react with oxygen and cause the development of free radicals that damage the body. The body fights this oxidation process up to a certain point, but if it gets out of control, it can eventually lead to things such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and aging. The way to protect against that is to use an antioxidant. Research has shown that darker honeys are typically better, but that does not mean lighter honeys are not protective.

There is much anecdotal evidence to support its use, and randomised controlled clinical trials that have shown that honey is more effective than silver sulfadiazine and polyurethane film dressings for the treatment of burns.

Introduction.

In 1989 an editorial in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine expressed the opinion: "The therapeutic potential of uncontaminated, pure honey is grossly underutilized. It is widely available in most communities and although the mechanism of action of several of its properties remains obscure and needs further investigation, the time has now come for conventional medicine to lift the blinds off this 'traditional remedy' and give it its due recognition."

Another study is looking at how honey consumption might benefit athletes. For carbohydrate consumption, honey gel packs are just as good as PowerGel as a low to moderate source of carbohydrates. Another interesting find for athletes: Honey was just as good as a gel form of dextrose called glucose at improving endurance cycling performance. Additional research showed that ingesting powdered honey with a protein supplement after intense weight lifting promotes an anabolic or muscle-building response equivalent to taking a protein supplement in combination with maltodextrin, another form of carbohydrate.

Mostly this was in reference to reports of the use of honey as a wound dressing. The ancient usage of honey as a wound dressing has been reviewed , but there have been only some very brief reviews, with little clinical detail, of the literature reporting modern usage of this rediscovered therapy for wounds.

Because of the increasing interest in the use of alternative therapies, especially as the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is becoming a major problem , and because of the increase in reported usage of honey as a wound dressing in recent times, it was considered timely to review the clinical and experimental findings that have been published on this subject.

Honey was also found to be beneficial in maintaining blood-sugar levels.

Pertinent to this are reports of honey being effective on wounds not responding to conventional therapy.

In honey, there is little water available to promote the growth of bacteria and yeast. Also, honey's natural acidity inhibits some pathogens, and it has tiny amounts of hydrogen peroxide as well as other substances that seem to contribute to its antibacterial effect, according to the National Honey Board.

In many of the reports the effectiveness of honey as a dressing on infected wounds is attributed in part to its antibacterial properties. But the large volume of published literature from in vitro studies that has established that honey has significant antibacterial activity will not be included in this review as it has been comprehensively reviewed elsewhere.

Manuka honey in New Zealand has been used to destroy bacteria found in stomach ulcers as well as tough strains of bacteria that infect wounds and burns, according to the honey board... [read more]

However, it is noted here for the interest of the reader that honeys with median levels of antibacterial activity have been found to completely inhibit the major wound-infecting species of bacteria at concentrations of 1.8% - 11% , and a collection of strains of strains of MRSA at concentrations of 1% - 4%.