When I saw this piece on Boing Boing about a seal whose shark bike was healed with honey, I was intrigued.
According to the vets who nursed the seal back to health before releasing it, honey has a variety of properties that make it great for treating wounds. It’s antibacterial, water repellent (hence sealing off the wound from organisms trying to colonize there) and “honey also contains a variety of compounds that may enhance the tissue response to infection and inflammation.”
Could this work for humans too? Could I get rid of my plastic tube of Neosporin for some local honey? I already use it on my face, why not a cut?
So I went searching and found out this from The Medical News:
“For several years now Bonn pediatricians have been pioneering the use in Germany of medihoney in treating wounds…The success is astonishing: ‘Dead tissue is rejected faster, and the wounds heals more rapidly,’ Kai Sofka, wound specialist at the University Children’s Clinic, emphasizes… ‘Even wounds which consistently refused to heal for years can, in our experience, be brought under control with medihoney – and this frequently happens within a few weeks,’ Kai Sofka says.
Like many natural solutions that blow our own engineered and chemically processed products out of the water, it’s not new. Ancient Egyptians used honey to heal wounds as well.
Since honey is water repellent, could you even ditch the band-aid? I just love this idea.
Keep in mind the Bonn medical researchers don’t have any solid clinical research to back up their claims. But when it comes to a little paper cut, it can’t hurt, right?
