Honey

Honey

Healing diseases had usually retained the attention of mankind since man had been existed. There was some procedures for healing diseases throughout the history of man existence. Rather spiritual or physical, these procedures were invented by man for solving inherent health problems. The amputation was practiced several centuries before as a surgical measure for removing of a body extremity to control pain or disease process in the affected limb. Now we are thinking that medicine is being more sophisticated than before and this thought cannot be proved since the conventional medicine is not able to heal a lot of diseases as before. The ancient medicine could not solve the problem of thyfoid and tubercculosis and now the modern medicine cannot solve the problem of cancer, diabet, sclerosis and ... read more.

cardiovscular diseases as well as many neurological diseases. Some dermatosis are now puting the medicine down such as psoriasis.

The holy Quran told us about the sign of Jesus (peace be on him) who was used to heal the diseases which could not be healed at that time and which were mostly blind and lepers. The miracle of Jesus was healing the diseases which usual procedures could not heal, and still could not heal now. There is  a verse in the holy Quran about this story: I have come to you wih a sign form your lord in that I make for you out of clay as it were the figure of a bird and breath into it and it becomes a bird by God's leave and I heal those born blind and the lepers and I quiken the dead by God's leave and I declare to you what ye eat and what ye store in your houses Surely therin is a sign for you if ye did believe. 

The early used medicinal pocedures were spiritual and physical, but they could never be purely physical as it is the case now. The psychological aspect is more important in many cases and some diseases are now being hard to deal with because of the ignorance of the psychological aspects. The ancient healing procedures were natural and without any side effects. Most of the curing materials were extracted from plants and bees. Some materials were also recovered from the sea products. Apitherapy would include the phytotherapy since most of the the products are originated from plants and other non vegetal products such as royal jelly, larvae and Bee venom which are made by the bees. Apitherapy is the most sophisticated procedure for healing almost all the diseases, and was known to man more than 6000 years ago. But the bees products are not all known, yet honey and pollen are the most popular known products but there are a lot of products originating from the bees including bee venom, royal jelly, larvae, propolis, bee bread and bee wax.

 The modern medicine crisis

After the war against bacterial diseases which gave to the modern medicine a false power to monitore all the diseases. The modern medicine had became a bible in the last half of the 20th century. Now this modern drug based medicine is not capable of healing skin diseases or wounds such as psoriasis nor could be capable of treating the Crohn disease. Cancer seems treated by misterious procedures including chemotherapy and hormonotherapy and/or radiotherapy. These procedures are also carcinogenic and we can never treat a disease whitout avoiding its causes.  

This situation encouraged people to go back to the natural healing procedures including Phytotherapy, Nutrition Dietarotherapy and Apithearpy as well as other procedures. Drug based medicine is facing a crisis because it had ignored these natural healing procedures. Apitherapy is based on bee products including honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, larvae, bee venom and bee wax.

Apitherapy: Honey and hive products

The apitherapy is the art of curing or healing diseases with honey and hive related products including royal jelly, propolis, pollen, bee venom, bee bread, larvae and bee wax. All these products should be used in the right way and by a specialist. The most common mistake made by almost all people is that apiculture is usually confused with apitherapy. Beekeepers are  not involved in apitherapy, but they are usually considered as practionners, they sure know a lot of things on the hive products but they cannot be apitherapy practioners.

The healing procedures using hive products can lead to best results when done in the right way. It should be pointed out here that honey used for healing diseases should be as it is made by the bees in natural conditions. Non genetically modifed bees, non genetically modified plants aroud the hives which should be elevated from the ground and far from the highways and populations. Natural wax, natural feeding for bees (honey), natural non painted wood for the hives, no antibiotics and no anti varroatosis due to the Varroa mite a parasite which can have a  pronounced economic impact on the beekeeping industry. Harvesting should be done only the press procedure, centrifuging may lose some factors, hives should not be heated before harvesting. Honey should not be heated nor filtered, it should not be packaged in transparent containers. Then honey can be used for healing diseases, externally (wounds and injuries) and internally orally administered honey for several diseases.

Apitherapy may be more efficient when joined to dietarotherapy. The patient may stop receiving toxic materials (fried and canned foods, candies, pastry, cakes, biscuits, ice cream, soft drinks and alcholic drinks), may not receive hormones (contraceptives) or other hormones used for curing cancers, may not be stressed and may not receive hard digestible foods like fatty materials including meats and meat products as well as milk and dairy produst. Foods resulting in allergies should be also avoided. Honey can help in the body detoxication by following a strict diet, too much boiled or mineral water and liquid foods.

In these conditions honey will sure lead to miraculous results. Not only honey but all the hive products including propolis, royal jelly and pollen. Some diseases cannot be healed by these products and may require bee venom rather by stinging directly or taking it as extracted. People under the bee healing procedures should be on diet, they should take sufficient honey for long time. The natural healing procedure by honey and hive products may require more than 6 months in most cases.

Because honey was considered as a sugar solution apiculture has also adopted some techniques to increase the production yield, so Honey in most cases is resembling a sugar-like solution. That is the new techniques used in beekeeping and the industrial scale production of honey resulted in a loss of its healing power. This is most probably due to the lack of some compounds coming from the bees themselves such as traces of bee venom, propolis, pollen and wax which may exist in honey. Heating, filtration and centrifugation should not be mostly avoided whenharvesting and storing. Light, air and water should not come in contact with honey at any moment when storing. It is also recommended to let the honey in its honeycomb for a suitable preservation of its biological and biochemical characteristics.

Not only the active principles extracted from the core of the fruits are responsible of the healing power of honey but factors from the bee arealso involved in the healing phenomena. Bees gather materials from the flowers which are swallowed and mixed with bee’s liquid containing enzymes and a lot of other factors. The swallowed mixture is resorted and deposited in the honeycomb to make honey after enzyme transformations and physical drying as well as other biochemical and physico-chemical factors.

Honey is defined in all the books of food science as a hyper saturated solution of sugars. It seems that this definition would be stupid and may not make sense, if honey is regarded as a sugar solution then it could be manufactured as other food products. The definition given by maneven specialized in the field of food science is not specific and does not refer to the most important power of honey, and this is a very good evidence that science is not able to describe natural phenomena with  precision and accuracy. These phenomena could not have been created by chance and could not have been monitored by man. Honey is a very complex product composed of a diet part including sugars vitamins and minerals, and a medicinal part represented by polyphenols, antioxidants, flavonoids, traces of undetermined compounds coming from propolis, venom, pollen, wax and from the bees themselves.

It is not possible to give a chemical composition of honey since it may vary widely throughout  the world. Honey in its diet part is composed of two main invert sugars glucose and levulose. Levulose is characterized by a high sweeteness relatively to the other sugars. It is the most swwet of all the sugars in the nature (see table bellow). The cost of levulose is higher than the cost of all invert sugars. Levulose absorbs slowly and may not increase blood sugar (hyperglycemia), so it can be used by diabetic patients. The low absorption of levulose makes it reaches  the large intestines and this would explain its laxative effect on the intestines.

	Sugar	sweetness
	Levulose	173
	Invert sugars	123
	Cane-sugar	100
	Glucose	74
	Maltose	32
	Galactose	23
	Lactose	16

In addition to the above sugar profile, honey contains some aromatic volatile oils, which make its flavor, mineral elements (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, phosphorus, etc.), some protein, various enzymes, vitamins and flavonoids as coloring material. The medicinal part is composed of trace amounts of propolis, wax, bee venom and pollen. Research about these compounds is now being performed to explore the honey healing power. Honey should not be calrifeid nor filtered. Thus honey should not be classified as food as it was considered by the modern science. Honey should be given more importance for reviewing its benefits and also to review its production.

Honey has been used as a medicine since ancient times in many cultures, and is still used in folk medicine. Use of honey as a therapeutic material has been rediscovered by the medical profession in more recent times, and it is gaining acceptance as a healing material for ulcers and bed sores, as well as other skin infections resulting from burns and wounds. However, little is known about the phenomena involved in the inhibition of microorganisms. In fact, honey has been found to be effective against microorganisms isolated from the urinary tract infection and the treatment of infantile gastro-enteritis. It may also have an anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial activities associated with the high antioxidant content. Different aspects of the antimicrobial properties of honey have been extensively reviewed.

A great deal of work has been done in attempt to identify the antimicrobial factors/compounds in honey and the range of organisms susceptible to this antimicrobial action. The word “inhibine” was introduced to describe these antimicrobial agents and this term is still used today. Several mechanisms have been suggested to explain the antimicrobial activity of honey. This activity has been attributed to the hydrogen peroxide H2O2 generated by the action of the enzyme glucose oxidase. But, high antimicrobial activity of honey has been entirely due to this non-peroxide compound. Hydrogen peroxide is not the only inhibiting compound in honey. In fact, inhibitors in honey may include many other compounds, two important classes of which are flavonoids and phenolic acids. It is well assumed that pH of honey is quite low, ranging from 3.2 to 4.5. This low pH is attributed to the presence of gluconic acid. This value is considerably lower than the optimum pH required for the growth of most bacteria, which is around 7. Additionally, non-dissociated organic acids also play an important role in the antimicrobial activity of honey since they are highly soluble in cell membranes. The floral source of honey is also responsible for its antimicrobial activity.

The antimicrobial activities of bee products including propolis, honey and fresh pollen are now being studied widely throughout the world. Sophisticated techniques are applied to identify the active chemical compounds in the hope to extract them for more availability in the market and also for more knowledge about the suitable use of these compounds via the modern distribution for the patients. In our Lab some works were carried out on honey, propolis and fresh pollen (see details).

  

Almost all the diseases could be alleviated or treated with honey. There is no side effect since it is a natural material and it could never make a non compatible reaction with other compounds in the body. Honey was used successfully in healing the following diseases :

Inflammation of cornea if used locally in the eye

Cancers

Asthma and allergies

Wounds and burns if used locally in situ.

Honey stimulates the regrowth of tissue involved in the healing process.

It has also an anti-inflammatory action which reduces the swelling around a wound.

Gastric and duodenal ulcers

Involuntary ion at beds

Blood formation

Colds, flu and pharyngitidis

Chronic hepatitis  

Insomnia

Alcoholic poisoning

Cough

Skin cracking and roughness, lips , sun stroke

Muscular  spasm

Sportive exercises

The healing power of honey is due to the trace amounts of many unknown compounds from bees and from plants too. Most of these compounds are photochemicals which are very sensitive to light. Therefore honey may loss its remedy benefits when packaged and stored under light. Unfortunately honey sellors prefer transparent packaging material like glass or plastic to opaque material. Honey is not a food product but a healing material so more attention should be given. 

The apitherapy should be investigated deeply to explore the natural healing procedures which may vary widely with the different bee products including honey , propolis, pollen, royal jelly, wax, bee bread, bee venom and larvae.

Our research on bee products since 1992 focused on the origin of honey and some other products such as propolis, fresh pollen, royal jelly, bee sting and bee larvae.

The healing method is not the same for all the diseases and people seeking for these procedures should look for well trained practioners in this field. Not all the honey sellors and honey producers are involved in apitherapy.
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