honey
Manuka Honey: Topical aid for skin enhancement and healing
Recently while traveling in New Zealand, I had the opportunity to learn more about a remedy that derives from a plant native to that country. Manuka honey, made from the collected nectar of the plant Leptospermum scoparium, is a widely employed, well studied topical aid for a variety of wounds, burns, cuts, infections and other skin problems.
Honey has been used for many years in beauty, medicine, and embalming, due to its aseptic composition. Bacteria cannot grow in honey, and thus it is excellent where bacteria may otherwise flourish. But manuka honey goes far beyond other honeys, actually sending out specific agents that fight bacteria and inflammation.
To make this special honey, beekeepers set their hives in areas rich in the native manuka plant. The bees gather nectar and pollen from the large green manuka bushes, and this adds up to a medical honey.
In New Zealand, and now in other parts of the world, “medical manuka honey,” is used on intractable burns and other wounds that do not respond well to other therapies. In the U.S. and the U.K., the medical supplier MediHoney provides manuka honey-impregnated bandages, as well as manuka honey creams, lotions and gels, for use in medical offices and hospitals.
I spoke with Dr Ralf Schlothauer at Comvita, New Zealand’s largest supplier of medical manuka honey, about what makes this honey so unique. According to Dr. Schlothauer, true medical manuka is sold with a “UMF” label, a seal that the honey contains what is known as “unique manuka factor.” Schlothauer said that unique factor is a concentration of antioxidant phenols that inhibit bacterial growth. Medical manuka honeys vary in UMF concentration, from as low as 5% to as high as 20% UMF.
Additionally, according to papers published in both the journal Food Chemistry and the journal Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, manuka honey contains novel proteins known as arabinogalactans, which appear
Recently while traveling in New Zealand, I had the opportunity to learn more about a remedy that derives from a plant native to that country. Manuka honey, made from the collected nectar of the plant Leptospermum scoparium, is a widely employed, well studied topical aid for a variety of wounds, burns, cuts, infections and other skin problems.
Honey has been used for many years in beauty, medicine, and embalming, due to its aseptic composition. Bacteria cannot grow in honey, and thus it is excellent where bacteria may otherwise flourish. But manuka honey goes far beyond other honeys, actually sending out specific agents that fight bacteria and inflammation.
To make this special honey, beekeepers set their hives in areas rich in the native manuka plant. The bees gather nectar and pollen from the large green manuka bushes, and this adds up to a medical honey.
In New Zealand, and now in other parts of the world, “medical manuka honey,” is used on intractable burns and other wounds that do not respond well to other therapies. In the U.S. and the U.K., the medical supplier MediHoney provides manuka honey-impregnated bandages, as well as manuka honey creams, lotions and gels, for use in medical offices and hospitals.
I spoke with Dr Ralf Schlothauer at Comvita, New Zealand’s largest supplier of medical manuka honey, about what makes this honey so unique. According to Dr. Schlothauer, true medical manuka is sold with a “UMF” label, a seal that the honey contains what is known as “unique manuka factor.” Schlothauer said that unique factor is a concentration of antioxidant phenols that inhibit bacterial growth. Medical manuka honeys vary in UMF concentration, from as low as 5% to as high as 20% UMF.
Additionally, according to papers published in both the journal Food Chemistry and the journal Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, manuka honey contains novel proteins known as arabinogalactans, which appear