Honey As A Superfood: Can It Really Heal Wounds, Fight Superbugs And Provide Sweet Relief For Coughs? | Antiviral

Humans person been consuming chromatic for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks utilized it arsenic a sweetener, but besides a curen for burns. Hippocrates, often referred to arsenic nan “father of medicine”, championed nan sticky worldly – mistakenly – for purposes arsenic varied arsenic contraception and baldness.

Today, chromatic is often described arsenic a superfood pinch a laundry database of promised benefits: a curen for coughs, an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, a imaginable solution to combat drug-resistant superbugs. Antiviral has antecedently debunked claims astir hay fever and honey, uncovering location is small grounds that earthy chromatic tin trim symptoms of allergic rhinitis.

When it comes to nan substance’s claimed benefits, what sticks, and what’s conscionable unfounded buzz?

What are nan benefits of honey?

Honey produced by nan occidental honeybee, Apis mellifera, contains predominantly sweetener – astir 80%. That level of sweetener does not time off capable h2o for germs to past in, says Liz Harry, an emeritus professor astatine nan University of Technology Sydney.

“It fundamentally ne'er goes off,” says Dr Kenya Fernandes of nan University of Sydney. The precocious sweetener attraction is partially why chromatic has been recovered intact successful ancient pots making love backmost thousands of years.

But chromatic besides contains components pinch antimicrobial properties, specified arsenic hydrogen peroxide – nan aforesaid compound utilized arsenic a disinfectant. A 2024 study Fernandes co-authored recovered that dozens of Australian chromatic samples retained immoderate antimicrobial properties moreover aft 15 to 17 years of storage.

Honey besides has traces of vitamins and minerals, pinch nutrients varying depending connected nan location and type of nectar harvested.

Manuka honeys, produced from nan nectar of nan manuka tree, “as acold arsenic we know, are unsocial successful containing a chemic called methylglyoxal,” Harry says. That compound besides has antibacterial properties, arsenic do different proteins and peptides that person been identified successful honey.

“It’s really astir a analyzable substance of different things, each moving together, that are much than nan sum of their individual parts – which is 1 of nan reasons that we’re willing successful utilizing full chromatic perchance arsenic topical treatments, alternatively than trying to fractionate retired those individual components,” Fernandes says.

Some grounds suggests chromatic tin thief pinch coiled healing, but nan constituent isn’t wide employed successful healthcare, says Prof Deshan Sebaratnam, a dermatologist astatine nan Skin Hospital successful Sydney. “There is immoderate grounds that chromatic mightiness beryllium amended than definite accepted antiseptics, but astir of nan studies successful this area are not bully quality,” he adds.

Despite its antimicrobial properties, earthy chromatic tin incorporate bacterial spores including those that origin botulism. For this reason, it should not beryllium fixed to infants nether 12 months, and medical-grade chromatic utilized for coiled dressings is sterilised utilizing gamma radiation.

Because chromatic contains a substance of progressive compounds that tin disagree from 1 cookware to another, standardising non-manuka honeys for objective usage is simply a challenge.

A caller study led by Fernandes has recovered that bees that collected nectar from a assortment of Australian autochthonal plants (excluding nan manuka tree) made chromatic pinch stronger antimicrobial effects than chromatic made from a azygous source. Currently, she says, scientists “lack nan servants of nan state to beryllium capable to foretell which honeys are going to beryllium very consistently bully [against bacteria] … that’s portion of nan logic for doing this research”.

Is chromatic an antibiotic?

Unfortunately, bee juice mightiness not beryllium nan solution to nan world antibiotic resistance crisis. There is grounds for honey’s effectiveness arsenic an antiseptic, thing applied externally to nan tegument – but not arsenic an antibiotic, a constituent that acts against germs inside the body.

“It’s wholly inappropriate to usage an antibiotic by eating it,” Harry says. “It’s not for illustration a supplier that gets into nan bloodstream and reaches nan correct area.” Other antiseptics (applied to surviving tissues) and disinfectants (which are applied to inanimate surfaces) specified arsenic ethanol – drinking intoxicant – activity good externally, but do not person nan aforesaid effects erstwhile imbibed.

“There’s nary logic why manuka would beryllium amended to eat than immoderate different honey,” Harry says.

There is some evidence, however, suggesting that chromatic has gut microbiome effects. Honey contains indigestible carbohydrates known arsenic oligosaccharides, which enactment arsenic prebiotics – substances that beforehand nan maturation of bully germs successful nan gut.

Because of its precocious sweetener content, “I don’t deliberation chromatic would needfully beryllium a merchandise that you sold for gut health,” Harry says. But imaginable prebiotic compounds successful chromatic are an avenue for further study.

Research has besides linked chromatic to amended slumber and little terrible coughs successful children pinch an precocious respiratory tract infection, pinch nan notable caveat that specified coughs mostly don’t require treatment. And, arsenic Prof Clare Collins astatine nan University of Newcastle has pointed out, nan magnitude and type of chromatic fixed varies crossed studies, “with nary certainty astir which components are present. So nan results request to beryllium interpreted pinch caution.”

• Donna Lu is an adjunct editor, climate, situation and subject astatine Guardian Australia

• Antiviral is simply a fortnightly file that interrogates nan grounds down nan wellness headlines and factchecks celebrated wellness claims