Manuka honey has been reported to exhibit antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus ( S. Aristotle (384-322 BC), when discussing different honeys, referred to pale honey as being “good as a salve for sore eyes and wounds”. The first written reference to honey, a Sumerian tablet writing, dating back to 2100-2000 BC, mentions honey's use as a drug and an ointment. Honey is an ancient remedy for the treatment of infected wounds, which has recently been ‘rediscovered’ by the medical profession, particularly where conventional modern therapeutic agents fail. In addition, honey is hygroscopic, which means that it can draw moisture out of the environment and dehydrate bacteria, and its high sugar content and low level pH can also prevent the microbes from growth.īased upon the extensive searches in several biomedical science journals and web-based reports, we discussed the updated facts and phenomena related to the medicinal property of honeys with emphasis on their antibacterial activities in this review.

Natural honey of other sources can vary as much as 100-fold in the potency of their antibacterial activities, which is due to hydrogen peroxide. Unlike glucose oxidase, the antibacterial properties from Leptospermum spp. Tan et al reported that Tualang honey has variable but broad-spectrum activities against many different kinds of wound and enteric bacteria. scoparium) honey,the best known of the honeys, has been reported to have an inhibitory effect on around 60 species of bacteria, including aerobes and anaerobes, gram-positives and gram-negatives. At present a number of honeys are sold with standardized levels of antibacterial activity. The belief that honey is a nutrient, a drug and an ointment has been carried into our days, and thus, an alternative medicine branch, called apitherapy, has been developed in recent years, offering treatments based on honey and other bee products against many diseases including bacterial infections. In most ancient cultures honey has been used for both nutritional and medical purposes. Currently, many researchers have reported the antibacterial activity of honey and found that natural unheated honey has some broad-spectrum antibacterial activity when tested against pathogenic bacteria, oral bacteria as well as food spoilage bacteria. mellifera) is one of the oldest traditional medicines considered to be important in the treatment of several human ailments. The use of traditional medicine to treat infection has been practiced since the origin of mankind, and honey produced by Apis mellifera ( A. Therefore, alternative antimicrobial strategies are urgently needed, and thus this situation has led to a re-evaluation of the therapeutic use of ancient remedies, such as plants and plant-based products, including honey –. This type of bacterial resistance to the antimicrobial agents poses a very serious threat to public health, and for all kinds of antibiotics, including the major last-resort drugs, the frequencies of resistance are increasing worldwide. However, as resistant pathogens develop and spread, the effectiveness of the antibiotics is diminished. Thus, identification and characterization of the active principle(s) may provide valuable information on the quality and possible therapeutic potential of honeys (against several health disorders of humans), and hence we discussed the medicinal property of honeys with emphasis on their antibacterial activities.Īntimicrobial agents are essentially important in reducing the global burden of infectious diseases. But, there is a large variation in the antimicrobial activity of some natural honeys, which is due to spatial and temporal variation in sources of nectar. The medical grade honeys have potent in vitro bactericidal activity against antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing several life-threatening infections to humans.

Its mechanism may be related to the low pH level of honey and its high sugar content (high osmolarity) that is enough to hinder the growth of microbes. However, another kind of honey, called non-peroxide honey ( viz., manuka honey), displays significant antibacterial effects even when the hydrogen peroxide activity is blocked. The antimicrobial activity in most honeys is due to the enzymatic production of hydrogen peroxide. Its immunomodulatory property is relevant to wound repair too. The healing property of honey is due to the fact that it offers antibacterial activity, maintains a moist wound condition, and its high viscosity helps to provide a protective barrier to prevent infection. Indeed, medicinal importance of honey has been documented in the world's oldest medical literatures, and since the ancient times, it has been known to possess antimicrobial property as well as wound-healing activity.

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