Wound Healing
: Honey is one of the oldest known medicines that have continued to be used up to present times in folk-medicine. Its use has been "rediscovered" in later times by the medical profession, especially for dressing wounds. Buy Stringy Bark Honey 15 aud Online
The numerous reports of the effec tiveness of honey in wound management, including reports of several randomised controlled trials, have recently been reviewed, rapid clearance of infection from the treated wounds being a commonly recorded observation.In almost all of these reports honey is referred to generically, Buy Stringy Bark Honey 18 aud Online
there being no indication given of any awareness of the variability that generally is found in natural products. Yet the ancient physicians were aware of differences in the therapeutic value of the honeys available to them: Aristotle (384-322 BC), discussing differences in honeys, referred to pale honey being "good as a salve for sore eyes and wounds"; and Dioscorides (c.50 AD) stated that a pale yellow honey from Attica was the best, being
"good for all rotten and hollow ulcers".Any honey can be expected to suppress infection in wounds because of its high sugar content, but dressings of sugar on a wound have to be changed more frequently than honey dressings do to maintain an osmolarity that is inhibitory to bacteria, as honey has additional antibacterial components. Since microbiological studies have shown more than one hundred-fold differences in the potency of the antibacterial activity of various honey, best results would be expected if a honey with a high level of antibacterial activity were used in the management of infected wounds.Other therapeutic properties of honey besides its antibacterial activity are also likely to vary. An anti-inflammatory action and a stimulatory effect on angiogenesis and on the growth of granulation tissue and epithelial cells have been observed clinically and in histological studies. The components responsible for these effects have not been identified, but the anti-inflammatory action may be due to antioxidants, the level of which varies in honey. The stimulation of tissue growth may be a trophic effect, as nutrification of wounds is known to hasten the healing process: the level of the wide range of micronutrients that occur in honey also varies.Until research is carried out to ascertain the components of honey responsible for all of its therapeutic effects it will not be possible to fully standardise honey to obtain optimal effectiveness in wound management. However, where an antiseptic wound dressing is required then standardisation for this effect is possible. Several brands of honey with standardised levels of antibacterial activity are commercially available in Australia and New Zealand, but even where these are not available it is possible to assay the level of antibacterial activity of locally available honey by a simple procedure in a microbiology laboratory.
Comments
Post a Comment