Book Review pubs.acs.org/jnp
Review of Honey in Traditional and Modern Medicine In summary, there has been a huge increase in the popularity of both the use of natural products and also beekeeping, fostered by an awareness of what Mother Nature has to offer in terms of promoting health, together with a concern over the environment. This book is an informative and unique addition to the literature and should be of interest to a range of readers including professionals, e.g., pharmacognosists, physicians, and pharmacists, as well as others with an interest in the use of natural products. The book contains more than an average number of grammatical and chemical structure errors, and there are some duplications of material, but there is also so much more factual content regarding the multiple aspects of honey and its medicinal use that these can largely be overlooked. It also has an extensive index. This reviewer recommends that the book is embraced in the spirit in which it was written: a broadranging account of the traditional medical history of the use of honey, albeit with a lot less about its use in modern medicine or controlled clinical trials.
Honey in Traditional and Modern Medicine. Edited by L. Boukraa (Ibn-Khaldoun University of Tiaret, Algeria). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA. 2014. xvi + 454 pp. 16.5 × 24 cm. $139.95. ISBN 978-1439-8401-60. I found this to be a very interesting book that covers a wide variety of material associated with the medicinal use of honey in Asia, Africa, and Europe. It includes 19 chapters tracing the history of honey as a therapeutic with authors from 25 Old World countries. There is no ancient use of honey in North America because honey bees, Apis mellifera, are not a native species and were introduced from Europe in the 17th century. The book covers much more than medical aspects with the addition of historical informationincluding the use of honey as a chemical warfare agentand geographical information, botanical influences, and analytical data, all of which supplement the medical aspects of honey use. The following topics are covered by the authors, who are all associated with universities: honey as an ethnomedicine, the history of honey, biochemistry and physicochemical properties, healing properties, relevance of the source, Manuka honey, use for treating ulcers including diabetic ulcers, use for treating burns, use in cardiovascular diseases, anti-inflammatory activity, antibacterial activity, pediatric use, applications in cancer therapy, and uses in food and nutrition. Given the rich, largely anecdotal discussions, the (limited) inclusion of scientific clinical trial data is helpful in determining the veracity of the many claims. Clearly there are genuine, successful medical applications, but the broad range of uses discussed is either very impressive or raises concerns. To focus on one aspect of medical use of honey, the antibacterial activity, it is clear that the antimicrobial activity of honey may be taken out of context, and even the highly praised Manuka honey, which contains a number of antibacterial substances, is not an antibiotic when compared to penicillin or tetracycline. In fact, MIC values reported for Manuka honey may be somewhat misleading. [Recent research from Prof. S. Meschwitz’s lab at Salve Regina University, RI, suggests there are quorum sensing inhibitors present in honey (Chem. Eng. News 2014, April 14, 12), which also may affect its antibacterial activity.] Honey clearly is useful for topical applications and infections, probably mainly through its physicochemical properties. One significant omission is a frank discussion on how honey, which is mostly sugar (essentially a mixture of fructose and glucose, together with minor amounts of sucrose, other hexoses, pentoses, and less common disaccharides), can have such health-promoting properties, whereas sucrose, i.e., table sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup are currently demonized by many health professionals as the possible cause of multiple modern health problems. A concentrated solution of sugar, for example, has also been shown to be antibacterial, probably because of its osmotic effects on the microbes examined. It would have been helpful to address this as one of the modern aspects alluded to in the title. © XXXX American Chemical Society and American Society of Pharmacognosy
Cedric J. Pearce
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Mycosynthetix, Inc., Hillsborough, North Carolina, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.5b00127 J. Nat. Prod. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
