Honey is Now Sweet on Burns

Praised for its ancient god-quelling qualities, throat-soothing remedies, and smile-inducing taste, honey dates back to the days before records were kept. The history of honey  is long and the possibilities of honey used for healing has long been documented, including most recently as a possible sinus-fighter.  A new study from New Zealand proves honey’s lasting healing qualities by introducing a new topical application: honey as dressing for a burn.

The University of Auckland study used 19 small clinical trials—using less than 100 participants for each—to show that tea’s favorite sweetener can actually accelerate the healing and rejuvenation of skin affected by burns. The New Zealand researchers discovered that honey helps promote new skin tissue growth and the removal of dead tissues.

By focusing on the antibacterial qualities of honey, the University of Auckland team reviewed 2,554 patients with a variety of different wounds and found out that the healing time was reduced with the application of honey compared with commonly used wound dressings made out of gauze. Although burn wounds seem to heal faster, the researchers caution that surgical scars, ulcers or cuts didn’t seem beneficial to the use of honey.

The investigations involved applying honey to partially thick burns as well as mild to moderately superficial burns that caused damage to nerves and the blood vessels were healed up to four days faster than normal approaches to burn wounds, such as the often-prescribed cream silver sulphadiazine known as SSD.

Published in the most recent issue of the Cochrane Library one of the researchers, Andrew Jull, explains in a release, “The evidence currently does not support the use of honey on acute wounds such as abrasions and lacerations or on minor, uncomplicated wounds left to heal …following surgery." Jull goes on to say that although the trials were positive, honey is not yet released for general use yet, “health services should refrain from providing honey dressing for routine use,” and the results—as well as being re-studied by more schools—should be looked upon with caution. The number of participants in each study is significantly low to prove results as each trial used a different type of honey on a slightly different wound.

One trial narrowed down the honeys that seemed to work the best healing wounds, those types that are derived from a single type of flower: aloe, jambhul, manuka or jarrah were most common. Honey is alternative medicine’s approach to harsh chemical-laden creams and ointments that are generally used to treat burns.

In a partner study also published in the Cochrane Library, an Australian researcher and co-author Jason Wasiak of the Victoria Adult Burns Service at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and his team looked through 26 random trials to determine there is no evidence to the effectiveness of common cream SSD used with gauze to prevent infections, he writes, “The use of silver sulphadiazine (SSD) as a comparator on burn wounds for the full duration of treatment needs to be reconsidered, as a number of studies showed delays in time to wound healing and increased number of dressing applications in patients treated with SSD dressings." The Australian researchers urge for better awareness for topical applications for burn victims and urge consumers to reconsider using SSD because it may be extending the healing process instead of speeding it up.

As with many trials, even randomly controlled trials, there still need to be more tests and more investigations into the natural fighting substance called honey for the purpose of treating burn wounds. So when you’re taking your tea or slathering it on your toast and you accidentally burn your fingers on the tea pot or the toaster, you might want to hold off on soaking your fingers in honey, at least until more research is published.