Consuming honey has some surprising health benefits. As a sweetener, it offers some wholesome advantages over refined sugar and other natural sweeteners.
Honeybees produce honey from the nectar of flowers as food. For humans, honey is a whole food that contains amino acids, vitamins, and minerals including thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E. The nutrients vary based on the plants visited by the bees. It contains abundant active biological constituents, such as polyphenols, which are nutrient-dense phytochemicals that boast antioxidant properties.
Honey is approximately 40% fructose, compared with the 50% fructose in table sugar and 90% in high-fructose corn syrup, which sweetens many processed foods in the standard American diet. Heavy fructose intake has been linked to many prevalent health issues, from liver ailments to metabolic diseases. The lower fructose content in honey also offers other health advantages.
For instance, a 2004 study that compared honey to dextrose and sucrose concluded that natural honey was able to lower plasma glucose, C-reactive protein, and homocysteine in healthy, diabetic, and hyperlipidemic participants.
Other research has shown that honey can promote lower adiposity, lower weight gain, and lower triglycerides than sucrose.
Let’s take a look at the advantages of using honey
Relief for seasonal allergies
Bee medicine, which uses bee-related products such as pollen, propolis, and honey, has been popular in folk medicine for centuries and is now gaining acknowledgment as an anti-allergy therapy. A randomized, placebo-controlled trial in Malaysia studied the complementary effect of ingesting a high dose of honey on allergic rhinitis, in addition to standard medications.
The trial divided 40 patients with allergic rhinitis equally into two groups: one ingesting one gram per kilogram bodyweight of honey every day for four weeks, and another receiving the same dose of honey-flavored placebo. Both groups received 10 milligrams of loratadine daily for four weeks.
While both groups progressively improved their symptoms at week four, only the honey group showed continuing improvement at week eight. It’s also the only group that significantly improved in individual symptoms, persisting for a month after the treatment ended.
Potential aid against Type 1 diabetes
A 2010 human study found that long-term consumption of honey might positively affect the metabolic consequences of Type 1 diabetes, such as possible beta cell regeneration as indicated by climbing fasting C-peptide levels.
“This small clinical trial suggests that long-term consumption of honey might have positive effects on the metabolic derangements of type 1 DM [diabetes mellitus],” wrote the researchers in this study that recruited 20 patients of both sexes ages 4 to 18.
Anti-influenza properties
Research from 2014 revealed that honey may provide a natural alternative to anti-flu medications, one without the unpleasant side effects linked to this class of drugs. Testing a commonly researched H1N1 influenza strain called A/WSN/3, the study exposed virus-infected cells to different kinds of honey, such as manuka, soba, kanro, acacia, and renge.
The results demonstrated that honey had strong inhibitory activity against the flu virus and provided a potential medicinal value. This study is one of many that show the benefits of honey in preventing infection and potentially reducing mortality rates in influenza.
Reducing heart disease risk
Honey helped reduce the overall amount of cholesterol and fats in the bloodstream in healthy young adults. This was shown by a study published in August 2018 as a collaborative effort between researchers from Iran’s Isfahan University and Mashhad University.
In the study, which recruited 60 subjects and assigned them to honey or sugar groups, the researchers compiled these findings:
Consuming honey slashed total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, as well as increased the presence of beneficial HDL cholesterol in the blood. Consuming sucrose offered the inverse effect, increasing total cholesterol and significantly raising LDL while reducing HDL in the blood.
Wound healing
Among the much-promoted benefits of honey is wound healing. As found in different studies, honey had several benefits:
Notably reduced the rate of amputation and improved wound healing when used for a wound dressing in chronic diabetic foot ulcers
Combined with milk and aloe vera in ointment form, honey facilitated multiple healing effects on burn wounds in animal models
Resulted in a decrease in wound sizes and faster healing after tooth extraction in children
Served as an effective antibacterial wound healing agent against MRSA-colonized leg ulcers
Used twice a day, thyme honey accelerated the healing process of open wounds
Final thoughts
Next time you are cooking or drinking coffee or tea, rather than reaching for the sugar jar, use honey instead. The health benefits far outweigh the detrimental effects of refined sweeteners.