Introduction
This essay looked at honey, providing a general description of the product and its historical applications and then exploring the methods of preparation that have been employed with honey. The paper then moves on to discuss the therapeutic benefits of honey and any possible toxic effects. The paper then looks at whether and why, as a naturopathic nutritionist, you would use or not use this product.
General description of honey
Honey is a food made by bees from the nectar of flowers (Orey, 2011). Honey is made and stored by bees inside honeycombs inside their hive, and the honey that humans eat comes from species within the genus Apis (which includes the ‘honey bee’). Honey is rich in sugars, composed mainly of fructose and glucose, with 82% of honey being sugars, honey providing 304 calories per 100g (Orey, 2011). Honey is therefore highly calorific with a high glycemic index; whilst its medicinal benefits are clear, it cannot be recommended that honey is eaten in great quantities (Orey, 2011).
Historical applications of honey
Honey has been consumed by humans, and used as a healing substance, for thousands of years. Mesolithic rock paintings depict human hunter gatherers taking honey out of hives, with honey remains having been found on clay pots that are known to be four to five thousand years old. There are Egyptian hieroglyphs that show Egyptians using honey as a food and as a medicine (Orey, 2011). Honey has, therefore, a long history of use by humans as both a food and a medicinal compound.
Methods of preparation of honey
Honey is consumed or used in many different ways. One of the most common ways of using honey, for example, is to eat it in its pure form. Many individuals eat honey in this way as they believe it confers health and wellbeing on them. Other ways of consuming honey include making a drink of honey and lemon, which is thought to ease the discomfort of a sore throat or a cough. Other modes of preparation of honey include topical methods of honey application, for example in wound care. As Pieper (2009) discusses, honey-based wound dressings have been used to treat wounds for thousands of years, with the US FDA recently approving honey-based wound dressings for wound care in clinical settings. Other individuals use honey as a beauty product, some women putting raw untreated honey under their eyes to protect against wrinkles and, it said, that Cleopatra used to bathe in honey baths, as she believed they were good for her skin (Bognadov, 2009).
Therapeutic benefits of honey
Honey has been used medicinally for many thousands of years: it has been used to treat colds, sore throats (through ingestion) and wounds and burns (through topical application), as honey is known to have both antiseptic and antibiotic properties (Altman, 2010). Boekema et al. (2012) discuss how honey is useful in the prevention of bacterial infection in burn wound care, with a clinical trial showing that those patients who had honey applied to their burn wound were less likely to develop wound infections than those patients who had their burn wound covered with traditional burn wound dressings.
Honey is currently being used in the treatment of MRSA bacteria that are resistant to a wide spectrum of antibiotics (Shenoy et al., 2012). As Belcher (2012) discusses, honey is an effective wound care compound that can even help in the treatment of infections that are resistant to different strains of antibiotics. Belcher (2012) states, “Medical-grade honey has emerged as a product that can achieve a variety of positive outcomes within the wound and is safe and easy to use”.
Research suggests that honey could be a potentially useful treatment option for certain forms of cancer. As Othman (2012) argues, honey is a, “natural immune booster, natural anti-inflammatory agent, natural antimicrobial agent, natural cancer ‘vaccine’ and natural promoter for healing chronic wounds and ulcers”. It is thought that honey has properties that allow it to inhibit cell proliferation, to induce apoptosis and to arrest cell-cycle problems, all of which mean that honey could help to fight cancer when it appears in the body (Fauzi et al., 2011).
Possible toxic effects of honey
Honey should not be given to young children, as honey can contain dangerous dormant endospores from Clostridium botulinum which can be dangerous to young children, causing fatal infection in the child’s intestinal tract.Additionally, honey that bees produce from certain species of flowers should not be eaten, as the nectar from these flowers causes honey intoxication, in which the person who has eaten the honey feels dizzy, weak, sweats excessively and can, in extreme cases, have convulsions and die (Jansen et al., 2012).
As Al-Walli et al. (2012) discuss, agricultural contamination with pesticides and antibiotics can mean that bee products, such as honey, are contaminated with these antibiotics and pesticides. As Al-Walli et al. (2012) discuss, this contamination can cause genetic mutations and could increase resistance to antibiotics in humans. As such, it is important that honey is labelled in order to allow the consumer to be certain that they are eating honey that is pure, not from contaminated flowers and that is free from toxic nectar (Al-Walli et al., 2012).
Assessment as to the use of honey by a naturopathic nutritionist
Honey has long been used in ayurvedic medicine as honey is considered to be able to balance all of the material imbalances in the body. Honey has also been shown to reduce damage in colitis and is recommended in many other nutritional prescriptions for treating common ailments (Altman, 2010). As to whether honey should be prescribed for use by naturopathic nutritionists, the sugar content of honey is high, but its health protective benefits are high, so honey should be recommended but at very low doses. It is recommended that honey be used by naturopathic nutritionists given the many health benefits of consuming honey and the fact that honey has few harmful side effects, if the honey that is chosen is organic and clearly labelled as being produced from safe, not potentially toxic, nectar.
Conclusion
This essay has discussed the historical applications of honey, finding that honey has been used for thousands of years as a food and a medicinal product. Honey is used in various ways, including as a food, a topical antibacterial and a topical antiseptic or as a tincture as a cure or beauty treatment. Honey has been shown to have many therapeutic benefits, in colds, wounds and cancer, and the essay concludes that honey should be recommended for use by naturopathic nutritionist, at low doses, given its high calorific value and glycemic index, and its value as a medicinal product.
References
Al-Walli, N., Salom, K., Al-Ghamdi, A. and Ansari, M.J. (2012). Antibiotic, pesticide and microbial contaminants of honey: human health hazards. Scientific World Journal doi: 10.1100/2012/930849
Altman, N. (2010). The Honey prescription: the amazing power of honey as medicine. New York: Healing Arts Press.
Belcher, J. (2012). A review of medical-grade honey on wound care. British Journal of Nursing 21, pp. 8-9.
Boekema, B.K., Pool, L. and Ulrich, M. (2012). The effect of a honey based gel and silver sulphadiazine on bacterial infections of in vitro burn wounds. Burns doi: 10.1016/j.burns.2012.09.008
Bognadov, S. (2009). External applications of honey. Bee Product Science, available from http://www.apitherapie.ch/files/file/8ExternalApplications.pdf [Accessed 11th November 2012].
Fauzi, A.N., Norazmi, M.N. and Yaacob, N.S. (2011). Tualang honey induces apoptosis and disrupts the mitochondrial membrane potential of human breast and cervical cancer lines. Food Chemistry and Toxicology 49, pp. 871-878.
Jansen, S.A., Kleerekooper, I., Hofman, Z.L. and Van der Hyden, M.A. (2012). Grayanotoxin poisoning: ‘mad honey disease’ and beyond. Cardiovascular Toxicology 12, pp. 208-215.
Orey, C. (2011). The Healing Powers of Honey. London: Kensington Books.
Othman, N.H. (2012). Honey and cancer: sustainable inverse relationship particularly for developing nations – a review. Evidence Based Complimentary and Alternative Medicine doi: 2012:410406
Pieper, B. (2009). Honey-based dressings and wound care: an option for care in the United States. Journal of Wound Ostomy and Continence Nursing 36, pp. 60-66.
Shenoy, V.P., Ballai, M., Shivanada, P. and Bairy, I. 2012. Honey as an antimicrobial agent against Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from infected wounds. Journal of Global Infectious Diseases 4, pp. 102-105.
