Honey

Honey helps the skin attract and retain moisture. Thentix uses honey that has been collected from beehives without any heat or distillation processing.

Main Uses in Thentix

• Healer
• Moisturizer
• Antioxidant
• Antiseptic
• Honey for cracked dry heels

The Antibacterial Properties of Honey

Abridged from and article by Dr. Peter Molan, Honey Research Unit, University of Waikato, NZ
Printed in Hivelights Vol 15 No. 1 p. 19

"Honey has been known to have antibacterial properties for more than a century. Although it has been used as a medicine since ancient times, initially it was just known to be an effective remedy. Now it can be seen that the effectiveness of honey in many of its medical uses is due to its antibacterial activity. It is well established that honey inhibits a broad spectrum of bacterial and fungal activity. There has not been much distinction made between the different types of antimicrobial activity in honey to which the various microbial species are sensitive.

"Antibacterial activity in honey can be caused by

• Osmotic effect, whereby water is drawn away from the microorganisms reducing their ability to survive,
• Acidity, honey is acidic, its pH being between 3.2 and 4.5, which inhibits growth in many pathogens,
• Hydrogen Peroxide, which is produced enzymically in the honey by the bee, and
• Phytochemical Factors which are non-peroxide antibacterial factors believed to be the many complex phenols and organic acids often referred to as flavonoids.

"These latter complex chemicals that do not breakdown under heat or light provide Manuka honey with its 'unique' antibacterial properties.

"In the time of Aristotle it was recommended that honey collected in specific regions and seasons (and therefore presumably from different floral sources) be used for the treatment of particular ailments, but in modern medicine clinical practitioners have not heeded these views. Although it appears that the honey from certain plants has better antibacterial activity than that from others, little work has been done to measure these variations. Honeydew honey from the conifer forests of the mountainous regions of central Europe has been found to have particularly high antibacterial activity, likewise honey from Manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) in New Zealand has been found to have a high non-peroxide activity. Studies on the effectiveness against wound-infecting species of bacteria show that Manuka honey is more effective than other honeys for Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus while other honey was superior for the other 5 tested species, including Salmonella, Streptococcus, and Pseudomonas There was little difference between the two types of antibacterial activity in their effectiveness, although some bacteria were more sensitive to the action of one type of honey than the other."