You won't bee-lieve it! Could manuka honey beat drug-resistant superbugs?

Strong stuff: Manuka honey could fight drug-resistant superbugs

It's a natural medicine employed for 1000's of many years to clean wounds and fight bacteria.

Now, however, honey could contain the answer to combating the modern threat of drug-resistant superbugs.

Research has proven that manuka honey can fight on two fronts. Not just will it assistance to kill MRSA along with other superbugs, additionally, it may prevent bacteria from becoming resistant against anti-biotics.

The possibility of an upswing of bugs that do not succumb to drugs was layed out this month through the Chief Medical Officer.

Professor Dame Sally Davies referred to it as being a ‘ticking timebomb’ that could leave millions susceptible to untreatable bacteria inside a generation.

But research around australia provides a solution. In the College of Technology Sydney (UTS), tests were completed on manuka, kanuka and clover honeys to locate that was best at dealing with bacteria generally present in chronic skin wounds

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The very best at carrying this out was Comvita medical-grade manuka honey, produced by bees foraging on New Zealand’s manuka trees.

When coupled with common anti-biotics, the therapy hampered multiplication of bacteria on wounds.

Most importantly, researchers found the honey avoided the bugs from developing any potential to deal with the antibiotic.

ANCIENT REMEDY

• Apitherapy, using honey like a medicine, continues to be practised because the occasions of Ancient A holiday in greece (2,000BC - 600AD)

• Honey in the manuka, an evergreen shrub coming initially from from Nz, was utilized by Maoris and settlers as medicine

• The honey comes with an anti-microbial level four occasions more than standard antiseptic

• It's accustomed to clean wounds, heal stomach stomach problems and treat eczema, acne and insect stings

Professor Liz Harry, of UTS, stated: ‘Manuka honey should be utilized for an initial resort for wound treatment, as opposed to the last measure, because it so frequently is.’The research, within the journal PLOS ONE, follows an earlier study which discovered that the honey was effective against greater than 80 kinds of bacteria, including MRSA.

Commercial honey purchased at shops isn't appropriate as it must be sterilised to really make it medical grade.

Infections have become harder to defeat but no new type of antibiotic has been seen as because the eighties.

The result is an earlier study that found manuka honey works well against greater than 80 various kinds of bacteria, including hospital superbug MRSA.

Professor Liz Harry at UTS stated: ‘We have proven bacteria don't become resistant against honey within the laboratory. In line with these details, we discovered that if MRSA were given just rifampicin [antibiotic], the superbug grew to become resistant very rapidly,’ she stated.

‘However, when manuka honey and rifampicin are utilized together to deal with MRSA, rifampicin-resistant MRSA didn't emerge. Quite simply, honey in some way prevents the emergence of rifampicin-resistant MRSA – this can be a greatly important finding.’

With overuse of anti-biotics partially blamed for the rise in resistant superbugs, Gps navigation is going to be requested to prescribe less anti-biotics to patients. Even though infections have become progressively hard to beat, no new type of antibiotic has been seen as because the eighties.

Dr Harry added: ‘With the existence now of bacteria which are resistant against all available anti-biotics, and also the dying of recent anti-biotics available on the market, manuka honey should be utilized for an initial resort for wound treatment, as opposed to the last measure because it so frequently does.

‘What we want is definitely an acceptance by society that anti-biotics will not provide everything we wished for once they were found within the nineteen forties which we have to get serious about using options for this, or use honey additionally for them.’

While all kinds of honey possess some antibacterial qualities, the elements of manuka honey allow it to be particularly effective.

You'll be able to buy dressings that already retain the honey, too apply honey straight to bandages along with other dressings.

However, supermarket honey won't do. Any honey used be sterilised to really make it of medical grade.