VANCOUVER - Honey, an ancient Greek balm for sores and abscesses, has fallen into disuse. Who, after all, wants to drizzle the sweet, sticky, golden goo on a burn or wound?
Peter Molan, that's who.
After nearly 20 years of research, the New Zealand biochemist has come to the conclusion that honey cleans and heals wounds better than the dressings and ointments used in hospitals. "I've just been asked to send some honey over to a hospital in Britain where they've got a teenager who has a wound so painful that they have to give him general anesthetic every time they change the dressings," he told a ballroom full of rapt beekeepers at Apimondia '99, a conference at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre.
Molan works with doctors and nurses at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton, New Zealand. They are setting up a pilot study to access honey's efficacy as a treatment for bedsores, diabetic foot ulcers and other hard-to-heal lesions. When he burns himself in his kitchen at home, as happened recently, he automatically reaches for the honey as first aid. About 50 studies, published in the British Journal of Surgery and other journals, attest to honey's ability to maintain a moist healing environment, banish infection, promote new skin growth and prevent scaring. Clinicians who are skeptical haven't read the literature, Molan said. "Most would be surprised to know there have been randomized, controlled trials which have proved that it's more effective than two most widely used treatment for burns" - namely, silver sulphadiazine ointment and polyurethane film dressings.
How does honey work? The biochemist doesn't have the complete answer, but he said bees add enzymes to nectar to turn it into honey. "One of those enzymes produces hydrogen peroxide and gluconic acid." Honey releases its hydrogen peroxide slowly, so it is less damaging to skin tissue than the drugstore type.
Molan said that in the last 10 years, medical personnel in New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain have rediscovered honey as a wound dressing. He has helped design honey-impregnated dressing pads and honey packaged in tubes, so they aren't getting it from grocery-store jars.
"It definitely helps, in getting honey recognized as a medicine, to have it looking like a medicine," he said.
Molan has found that New Zealand manuka honey has a more potent antimicrobial action than other honeys. Manuka is a Maori word for two woody plants that take over grazing land in New Zealand, forming dense scrub. Even among manuka honeys, there are differences in strength. Molan devised a rating system, similar to the SPF figures on sunscreens, that is used on jars of New Zealand manuka honey. A UMF, or unique manuka factor, of 10 or more indicates a honey has verified antibacterial activity.