Healing wounds with honey

Some people have wounds that won't heal, and doctors have been looking for something to help heal everything from diabetic ulcers to burns.

Josh Benton, 63, mows lawns for a living. During his daily work he hit his foot on a rock, and the wound wouldn't heal. It was deep enough to reach the bone, and everything he tried failed. Doctors at Georgetown University then tried a new dressing soaked in honey. "I'm on board as long as it's clean and healthy and making progress," Benton says.

The medical honey dressing is made of highly absorbent seaweed fibre soaked in a special honey produced only in Australia and New Zealand. This concentrated honey creates an ideal environment for healing.

"Honey kills bacteria with some of the enzymes it contains," says Dr Christopher Attinger, chief of the wound healing division at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington. The acidity of the dressing also helps lower the pH of chronic wounds, which helps healing, and unlike antibiotics, honey leaves no toxic effects and carries no risk of bacterial resistance.

"We started using manuka honey as first-line treatment, and because of its great success we haven't looked into other honeys," Dr Attinger said.

Within a month, Benton's wound had shrunk by 95%. "Power to the bees," he says. He is delighted: the treatment has given him his life back, and he can use his leg again.

Researchers believe medical honey dressings may protect wounds from many infections, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). A box of dressings costs about 50 dollars.

Medical honey is specially sterilised; don't put ordinary kitchen honey on wounds. Wounds that don't heal, especially in people with diabetes, need a doctor.