Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Honey is Healing

A reader sent me some information on the benefits of honey, and here is an article about it, via Spirit Daily.
Due to its antibacterial properties, honey dries up wounds quickly and even decreases swelling or edema in the surrounding skin. It also helps get rid of foul smell in wounds by rapidly decreasing dead, infected tissue and promotes the growth of healthy healing tissue.

These properties are attributed to the high sugar content, high acidity, and presence of substances called inhibins in honey. Hydrogen peroxide and some phenolic acids could be such substances. All the exact components responsible for the antibacterial effects have not been identified yet. Scientists are still speculating what enzymatic processing the nectar from flowers undergoes in the beehive that makes honey medicinal and also gives it a long shelf life of several years.

Several surgeons have noted that in the treatment of infected surgical wounds, antibiotics could be discontinued earlier when honey was used to dress them, as the wounds healed faster and without infections.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fascinating! I'd opt for that over maggot therapy for wound healing.