Michael Menna, DO, is a board-certified active attending emergency physician at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York.

A lump of sweet and delicious slime made from bees-sounds good, maybe a bit messy, but does it help stop infections? maybe. This ancient panacea may actually be a modern wound healing therapy, because antibiotics are getting worse and worse for the infections we see.

Honey has been used since ancient times, from Egypt to China, from Greece to the Middle East. It is used to treat sore throats, but sometimes it is also used to treat wounds. Today, it is used anywhere from San Francisco to northern Nigeria. 

However, honey is not always considered beneficial for wound care. In the past, it was regarded as a natural remedy of little value. For many years, it was not part of standard medical practice. Sterile honey was licensed for use in Australia as early as 1999, while honey bandages were licensed for use in the United Kingdom in 2004. Now, some companies’ medical honey business is worth millions of dollars.

More and more evidence shows that applying honey on wounds does help wounds heal. Many health practitioners use it in mature medical institutions. However, given all the different types of wounds, it is difficult to gather evidence and conduct the clinical trials required to evaluate honey in all these different environments.

The Cochrane Review, an important independent review team, reported: "Honey seems to be better than conventional treatments (including polyurethane film, paraffin gauze, sofmycin impregnated gauze, sterile linen and exposing burns) and wounds after infection. Heals faster-surgical wounds are faster than disinfectants and gauze.” This means that when analyzing multiple studies, experts reviewed by Cochrane stated that honey is helpful for certain types of burns, even better than some common treatments. The method is better, and honey improves postoperative wounds faster than using gauze and ordinary preservatives alone.

Certain types of honey are more commonly used for wound healing than others. Research is still ongoing to determine what works best. Honey should be medical grade honey, so as not to worry about bacteria or other additives or allergens in it. Many people use medical grade honey from Leptospermum honey, such as manuka and jelly honey.

Although honey does not support bacterial growth, it does contain spores. These spores can grow into bacteria, leading to diseases such as botulism that we don't want. Botox is also the reason why parents are told not to feed their babies, dear. Medical-grade honey is processed (or irradiated) to ensure that there are no spores and that there are no other pathogenic factors.

You also do not want sweet, uncovered honey that attracts flies or insects to the wound, so using a bandage with medical-grade honey and a prepared gel containing medical-grade honey is a viable method.

The honey mentioned here is used to apply wounds, not to eat. Honey contains sugar, and high sugar content is not helpful for treating infections, especially for diabetics.

Bacteria do not grow well in honey. This is one of the reasons why honey is helpful to wounds. To some extent, honey can inhibit bacteria. There are many reasons for this.

This is also a good mixture because it is not too strong. Direct use of H2O2 is too strong for the wound and will damage the healing tissue. Too acid substances can also damage young, growing tissues. 

First of all, for any burns or wounds that may be serious, worsening, or not healing fast enough, please seek professional medical help. The reasons are as follows:

Keep the wound clean. Discuss with medical professionals how to best do this. It is also important that the wound does not dry out. Bandages can help keep them moist and not too dry, and health professionals can help solve this problem. It is also important to seek help with wounds (such as burns), which may become hard and may require help to prevent tissues from shrinking and becoming too tight as they heal.

It is also important to take precautions when dealing with wounds. You don't want to bring bacteria or other bacteria into the wound, for example from your hands, or even from gloves or bandages. You also don't want the wound to infect you. When dealing with any open wounds, blood or other body fluids of other people, take general precautions to avoid the risk of infection with any type of infectious pathogen. This means wearing gloves when handling any kind of bodily fluids or open wounds.

The wound may require antibiotics. If the wound develops pus, new discharge, abscess, new redness or pain on the edge of the wound, slow healing, or any other important signs or symptoms, you may need to treat the wound further. This may mean debridement by medical professionals or antibiotics or other treatments.

Even if you seek treatment in the hospital, you may still receive honey treatment. Many medical institutions around the world do use honey as part of wound care. You can discuss this with your healthcare professional.

All of this says that simple wounds can now be treated with medical honey bandages, which are sold on the counters of many pharmacies and stores in the United States and elsewhere. The honey may already be on the bandage, or a gel containing medical-grade honey can be applied directly to the wound.

Medical grade honey has been used in many different types of wounds:

The mismanagement and overuse of antibiotics has led to an imminent problem-we are running out of antibiotics needed to treat infections. Those infections that once responded to antibiotics are now their own "honey badgers." Bacteria don't care; they keep growing in the presence of antibiotics.

Part of the reason this happens is that we often use antibiotics when they are not needed. Many people take antibiotics "just in case". They may have taken antibiotics to avoid infections that have not yet occurred. When they think they are infected but not infected, they may have taken antibiotics. For wounds, it is usually difficult to determine whether there is an infection, so use

Honey provides an opportunity to treat infections, whether they are resistant to antibiotics or not. Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics are rarely "super bacteria". They are rarely stronger than any other bacteria, in fact, sometimes weaker. It's just that these resistant bacteria do not respond to antibiotics. Honey does not rely on antibiotics, so it can help stop bacteria in its own way.

This is like other new and old therapies that we rediscovered as we approached the post-antibiotic era. Bacteriophages (or viruses that infect bacteria) were used before antibiotics were discovered, and when antibiotics did not work, it was increasingly studied as a new method of fighting bacteria. The same is true for different antibody treatments. It is possible that more types of treatments that were once considered to be alternatives or supplements have become the core and important methods of fighting bacteria, because we are beginning to lose the ability to use antibiotics that we rely on to fight bacteria.

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Cooper R, et al. Comparison of antibacterial efficacy between medical grade honey and edible honey. Wound. 2009;21(2):29-36.

Journal of Lower Limb Wounds. International evidence supporting the use of honey as a wound dressing. March 2006 5: 40-54.

Juul AB et al. Honey is used as a topical treatment for acute and chronic wounds. Cochrane comments. March 2015.

Soffer A. Chihuahuas and Laetrile, chelation therapy and honey. Arch International Medicine. 1976;136(8):865-866.

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