title: Honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity.
abstract: Indeed, medicinal importance of honey has been documented in the world's oldest medical literatures, and since the ancient times, it has been known to possess antimicrobial property as well as wound-healing activity. The healing property of honey is due to the fact that it offers antibacterial activity, maintains a moist wound condition, and its high viscosity helps to provide a protective barrier to prevent infection. Its immunomodulatory property is relevant to wound repair too. The antimicrobial activity in most honeys is due to the enzymatic production of hydrogen peroxide. However, another kind of honey, called non-peroxide honey (viz., manuka honey), displays significant antibacterial effects even when the hydrogen peroxide activity is blocked. Its mechanism may be related to the low pH level of honey and its high sugar content (high osmolarity) that is enough to hinder the growth of microbes. The medical grade honeys have potent in vitro bactericidal activity against antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing several life-threatening infections to humans. But, there is a large variation in the antimicrobial activity of some natural honeys, which is due to spatial and temporal variation in sources of nectar. Thus, identification and characterization of the active principle(s) may provide valuable information on the quality and possible therapeutic potential of honeys (against several health disorders of humans), and hence we discussed the medicinal property of honeys with emphasis on their antibacterial activities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, KPC Medical College and Hospital, 1F Raja S C Mallick Road, Jadavpur, Kolkata-700 032, India.
authors.forename: Manisha Deb
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Mandal
authors.forename: Shyamapada
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mandal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects; D006722:Honey / Q000032:analysis* / Q000145:classification; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents
keywords: Antibacterial activity; Antimicrobial agents; Antimicrobial property; Glucose oxidase; Honey; Immunomodulatory property; Medical-grade honey; Medicinal property; Non-peroxide effect; Wound healing property