Olidhealth.com – Honey is a viscous syrup that usually has a sweet flavor and gain popularity across the world. It is coming from nectar that is gathered by the honeybee. There are numerous variants of this food depending on its specific flower. In fact, honey from wild bees also has a different smell, taste, and flavor than commercial honey. Moreover, honey has a myriad of benefits for treating certain health issues. Check this article to find more information about its benefits and side effects on our health.
Nutrition Fact of Honey
In this section, we focused on common honey that is usually found in the market since other types of this food may have different compositions. As for your information, some people believe that dark honey color indicates it has high in nutrients. However, this statement doesn’t have any scientific evidence. Honey that is produced from eucalyptus, thyme, or rosemary may have high nutrition since they have darkened color liquid.
Honey also can be distinguished depending on its production. There are two categories for this matter, raw and pasteurized. Some people suggest taking raw honey since it may have more nutrients than another one. It is a true assumption because pasteurized honey uses high heat to neutralize bacteria along with allergen pollen and also break down its beneficial nutrient. whatever your choice to pick one of these, it still has benefits for your health.
The nutrition in 20 grams (a spoonful of common honey) according to the United State Department of Agriculture are shown below [1]:
- Calories = 60 kcal
- Carbohydrate = 16 grams
- Sugar = 16 grams
- Water = 3 grams
- Fat = 0 grams
- Protein = less than 0.1 gram
- Fiber = less than 0.1 gram
Honey also has a small number of minerals such as potassium, calcium, sodium, phosphorus, and iron. In general, honey doesn’t have fat and it is fully sugar content. However, it is also a little amount of protein and fiber but it is not very valuable. Although it also has small calories, it could be used as a sugar substitute with health benefits since it has a polyphenol compound to make it more healthy.
Versatile In Every Kind Of Food and Drink
This thing can be added to some cuisine and beverages as a natural sweetener besides sugar. Although it uses to add sweet flavor, it is better than normal sugar and some variant of honey have a slightly sour taste. For example, you can toss it on yogurt, oat porridge, milk, herbal tea, bread, and many more. Honey is also good to lower sourness in juice and enrich the flavor in it. In Asian cuisine, this viscous sweeter is essential in some remarkable dish such as Chinese honey chicken and honey sesame tofu.
Great Sugar Substitute For Diabetes
This claim may not be as good as its sounds, but honey could be a sugar substitute to treat type 2 diabetes. It also has a slightly lower glycemic index (GI) than common sugar. Moreover, eucalyptus honey is reported to have the lowest GI as low as 35 (55 or less categorized as low GI food) and it is 2 times lowers than common sugar (60-70 GI).
Recent studies in Australia found that some specific bees could produce honey with rare disaccharide trehalose. Furthermore, these compounds are beneficial to improve insulin tolerance and reduce type 2 diabetes progression. Moreover, Manuka honey has a high content of hydroxycinnamic acid than other honey that is good to treat diabetic disease.
Although it is good as a sugar substitute, Severe diabetes is not allowed to have any sugar intake including honey unless it is have been authorized by your doctor [2]. Moreover, It needs special treatment and further medication to fight this disease. If this food doesn’t help it, you can choose other food to maintain sugar levels such as carrot or tomatoes.
Could Healing Wound and Improve Skin Health
Just apply honey on the skin topically and you will have it benefit. Is that true? Yes, this food can be used as dressings that could relieve irritation and improve healing wounds.
Some studies suggest that manuka honey are have high anti-bacterial properties to heal and promote skin health [2]. This kind of food is native to Australia and New Zealand because it is produced on Leptospermum that is mostly found there. Studies in 2018 also found that honey can treat diabetic wounds in slow progress.
Moreover, ulcers caused by diabetic complications could be healed with methylglyoxal compound within this food, according to research in 2011. Manuka honey is also believed could treat dermatitis and eczema but it doesn’t have any medical research to prove it.
There is also another honey also has benefits to the skin. Talh honey contains a little amount of octadecanoic acid. These substances are commonly found in soap and anti-aging serum to take care of your skin. It could increase skin elasticity and prevent wrinkles at an early age.
Diluting this honey in water and applying it could serve as antibiotics to prevent infection and its anti-inflammation properties to promote the healing process.
Good Cough Suppressant
Cough is typically caused by bacteria and viruses. Moreover, hoarse and chest pain can occur if the lining of the respiratory tract is inflamed. Honey has anti-bacterial and anti-inflammation compounds such as flavonoid and phenolic to counter these infections.
Some people say that honey is a good natural cough suppressant to reduce its symptom. Furthermore, this food could soothe the irritated throat and speed up the healing process. We recommended mixing honey with lime or ginger powder to treat cough. Take 1 spoon of this food and drink warm water after that every day to relieve this symptom.
Boosting Your Mood and Improve Sleep
Sometimes, overwork could make you sluggish and tired. In fact, it could lead to some neurological problems like stress and depression. To prevent it, you can do your hobby and have relaxed occasionally. Consuming healthy drink such as herbal tea with honey, in addition, could reboot your mood and makes you better.
Although herbal tea might have sedative and antidepressant effects, honey also provides these functions with its flavonoid and phenolic substance. Researchers found that this food can boost your mood and also improve deep sleep.
If you want to have deep sleep, we have a solution for you. Prepare honey, banana, and milk (full cream or not is up to you), blend them together, and drink them before sleep. These food have high carbohydrate and glucose content that will make you very sleepy since your stomach takes some time to ingest it. Be cautious to take this advice if you have digestion disorder or diabetes.
Smoothen Digestion Tract
Honey has many benefits to keep your metabolism functioning, especially in the digestion tract. Investigation about this matter has been shown that this food could treat stomach ulcers. Heliobacter pylori are common bacteria that cause stomach ulcers by damaging the lining of the stomach [2]. Consuming honey could reduce and prevent the infection of this bacteria since it has an anti-bacterial agent to counter it.
Some research also believes that honey could treat dysentery and diarrhea. It could fight the bacteria that caused diarrhea in the small utensil and shortened disease duration. You can consume 1 – 2 spoons of honey that could be safe to treat this disease or as a preventive countermeasure to keep your digestive tract stay healthy.
Keeping Away From Bad Mouth
Are you have a bad mouth? if you have it, try to consume 1 spoonful of honey before working or doing your activities. Halitosis or bad mouth is caused by overpopulated bacteria that eat your remaining food and release awful gas. Moreover, your partner may have lost interest in you. To remove that smell, you can consume honey.
This food is known for its antibiotic properties that may help reduce bacteria multiplication in your mouth. Various types of honey also have a refreshing aroma since it is produced from flower nectar.
Lowering High Blood Pressure
Some kind of honey also has palmitic and oleic acid substances that have a huge benefit to maintaining blood pressure. This compound has anti-inflammation properties to reduce blood vessel swelling and improve blood flow. Moreover, it is also related to cholesterol to reduce heart disease development. Although honey doesn’t have any fat, this compound is considered like saturated fatty acid and could be damaged during the heating process.
People with high blood pressure could consume honey to reduce or prevent spikes of pressure. Eat 1 spoonful after breakfast may promote your daily activity in a full day. Other food like berries and beetroot also could reduce high blood pressure if you want to try it or mix it with honey.
Could Treat Hepatic Disease
For some reason, honey could cure liver-related diseases such as hepatitis, jaundice, and Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Several studies found that miracle substances in honey could reduce or prevent this disease [2].
Phenolic and flavonoids in honey have antimutagenic and anti-inflammatory properties to treat NAFLD. Moreover, this food also could reduce the risk of fibrosis and cirrhosis by improving insulin resistance and helping to break down excess fat in the liver, based on research in 2020 [3].
Another benefit of honey also has been shown in research in 2016. Children with Hepatitis A symptoms are given honey based on their ages. In just 4 weeks of medication, most of them are completely recovered [4]. Talh and manuka honey also showed have hepatoprotective effect to counter oxidative stress and free radicals that could damage liver cells.
Could Reduce or Prevent Vision Infection
If you feel like having blurred lenses, feel irritated the eye, or vision disorder, you could use honey to reduce that. Some eye diseases are also caused by bacteria like conjunctivitis. Honey, as we mentioned before, has anti-bacterial properties to reduce bacteria development or to slow down their progression.
You can make a light honey solution by mixing it with warm water (around 250 ml water with 3 – 5 teaspoons of honey) and using it as eyewash. Repeat washing 3 – 4 times and rinse it with fresh water. It will help reduce the irritation within the eye and flush out malicious bacteria that cause an eye infection. If you want to try something different food, you can try these kinds of foods to treat eye disease such as orange and green leafy vegetables.
Improve Muscle and Stamina During a Workout
During exercise, the body needs enough energy supply. However, lack of protein and sugar intake may lead to early fatigue and tiredness. Honey could solve that problem since it contains sugar with low fat.
This food is the natural quick energy charge that is easily ingested into the body. its mainly have glucose and fructose that provide energy supplement during an intense workout. Moreover, this food is also easy to be added with other food that has the same benefit. Consuming 4 spoonfuls of honey could improve stamina and boost blood flow since it also affects nitric oxide levels in the blood.
The Side Effect of Honey
Although it has a myriad of benefits, honey can also be bad for your health in certain conditions. You must be sure to read this advice since it could save your life.
Honey Can Turn To Be Toxic
Although it can be used in almost anything dish, you should not mix honey with some items that would deteriorate your health. Radish is one that you should be mixed with honey because it could release a toxic compound that harms your body.
Hot water is also not suitable well if you combined it with honey. Studies found that it could be toxic if the water temperature exceeds 60 Celcius (140 in Fahrenheit). Sugar compounds like hydroxymethylfurfural could become toxic if being heated [5]. Even though it can be problematic, you can add honey to your favorite beverage at a lower temperature to prevent it happen.
Risk of Botulism
Pediatricians always mention this matter since it important massage for parents. Honey can’t be given to infants that are younger than 1 year old. They are not allowed to consume honey since they have under development metabolism and immune system. Honey might have bacterial such as clostridum botulinum that can be toxic to babies [6].
Pasteurized honey production uses the heating technique to decrease or even kill ‘bad’ bacteria on it. However, it is not enough to be called ‘safe’ for babies. So don’t dare to give them some honey unless they pass the minimum age restriction.
Allergy
Some people may have allergic reactions to some type of honey. Moreover, the symptom also varies for each person who has it such as sneezing, runny nose, rash on the skin, and itchy feeling within their throat.
This symptom could be caused by the pollen residual that comes along with the fluid during honey extraction. You can choose pasteurized honey that may have less pollen since it uses heat in its production to destroy it. However, ask to specialize doctor to make sure the type of honey that safe for your consumption if you have a pollen allergy.
Conclusion
Honey is a popular natural item that could be used literally anything as food or dressing for certain uses. It also has benefits to maintaining your health since it has high nutrition. A pack of honey also could be used to improve your stamina during a workout and promote your skin health.
However, there are also have disadvantages to using this food for babies or people with pollen allergies. Make sure to read this article thoroughly that may have beneficial information to keep you stay up to date about the benefit of honey.
Reference
[1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1103956/nutrients – Nutrition fact of honey
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5424551/ – natural health benefit of honey
[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343697684 – NAFLD reduction by honey consumption
[4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308009848 – Hepatitic treatment in children with honey
[5] https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/25/8/1941/htm – Hydroxymethylfurfural in honey can be harmful
[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28742188/ – honey is harmful to babies under 1 year old