A cup of tea with honey has long been linked to health benefits, including its ancient status as a sore throat soother and more recent findings that green and black teas help reduce cancer risk.
Scientists are now beginning to realize there are strong potential medicinal properties in the honey too.
A growing number of studies on people and animals shows honey can help wounds heal faster. The most impressive study was performed on burn victims in India. The study compared 52 patients whose wounds were dressed with honey-smeared gauze bandages to 52 patients treated with the conventional salve of silver sulfadiazine. The results, published in the professional journal Burns, showed 87 percent of the patients with honey bandages healed within 15 days while 10 percent of the silver sulfadiazine group healed in the same time. The honey-dressed patients also reported less pain, fluid leaking and scarring than the standard group, said the researchers.
In 1999, the Australian government agency equivalent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved honey as a medicine. A commercial product, Medihoney, is now available as a wound dressing in pharmacies there.
Medihoney is made from the honey of bees that tap into the nectar of the tea tree (Leptospermum). Biochemists at the University of Waikato in New Zealand have found this particular tree has a nectar with bacteria-fighting properties that can neutralize the staphylococcus aureus bacteria.