For thousands of years, honey has been recognized as one of the most natural home remedies to treat a wide range of ailments and complaints including yeast infection, athlete's foot, and arthritis pain. Its antiseptic properties inhibits the growth of certain bacteria and helps keep external wounds clean and free from infection. Honey has been used as a natural cure in first aid treatment for wounds, burns and cuts as it is able to absorb moisture from the air and promote healing. Its antibacterial properties prevent infection and functions as an anti-inflammatory agent, reducing both swelling and pain, and even scarring. It is widely believed that UMF Manuka is the preferred honey for wound dressing due to its strong antibacterial property.

 

Unique Manuka Factor or commonly known as UMF is the only worldwide standard in identifying and measuring the antibacterial strength or quality of some strains of Manuka. It is a guarantee that the honey being sold has the special UMF antibacterial property and a UMF rating of 10 is the minimum recognized. Ordinary Manuka has only the hydrogen peroxide antibacterial property which is common to most types of honey, whereas UMF Manuka has both the natural hydrogen peroxide antibacterial property and its own natural UMF antibacterial property, giving it increased antibacterial potency. The UMF property is very stable, unlike the hydrogen peroxide antibacterial property common in most honey which is easily destroyed by heat, light as well as certain enzymes in body serum.

UMF is not found in the nectar of all Manuka flowers, which are known as Leptospermum scoparium and belong to the the Tea Tree bushes found only in New Zealand's coastal areas. Some Manuka bushes do not produce honey with the UMF property every year, and the concentrations of UMF can vary from batch to batch and year to year. The reason why only some Manuka honeys have the unique UMF antibacterial property is not yet known. Researchers believe that it could be from a subspecies of Manuka or due to some environmental factor such as soil type.

MEDIHONEY® dressings, a unique line of dressings containing Active Leptospermum Honey from New Zealand, possess unique qualities that make them ideal for the management of chronic and acute wounds and burns. A strong and growing evidence base - including several large scale randomized controlled studies - have shown that MEDIHONEY® dressings are effective on hard-to-heal wounds and burns, in addition to helping to debride wounds and keeping wound beds clean of necrotic tissue.

Because they contain a very high percentage of Leptospermum honey, MEDIHONEY® dressings are able to work in the presence of wound fluid, blood, and tissue, thus promoting an optimal healing environment.

Clinicians have successfully used MEDIHONEY® on a variety of wounds, and in a variety of settings. Additionally, MEDIHONEY® has been used successfully along with other advanced wound care modalities, including being used before, during, and after negative pressure applications, as well as being used as cover dressings for skin grafts and skin substitutes. The line consists of patented dressings that help to keep large amounts of honey at the site of the wound, even in the presence of large amounts of wound fluid. The dressings are indicated for the management of wounds such as:

Due to their versatility and lack of toxicity, MEDIHONEY® dressings can be used in all stages of wound healing, and can also be used as an important component of wound bed preparation. As such, placing these dressings as the cornerstones of a wound care formulary can take a great deal of the guess-work out of wound management.

Use of medical grade honey for healing of difficult wounds has its challenges. The first is that Active Leptospermum honey has many unique florally-derived components, and much research is needed to ascertain which of these components drive certain wound healing attributes. The second is that, even among batches of Leptospermum honey, there can be significant variation. Additionally, since these batches of honey generally look the same to consumers, the situation is ripe for unscrupulous behavior. For example, while "Active Leptospermum Honey" can be readily found for sale on the internet, an unregulated retail industry allows for manufacturers to label their product as "active" (thus commanding a much higher price) when the product may not be "active" at all. There are also ways to alter or "spike" Leptospermum honey such that it is processed to make it appear to be "active". Unfortunately, research has shown that this spiking can lead to serious degrading of many of the significant florally-derived components, thus compromising wound healing benefits.

Medical grade "Active" Leptospermum honey is considered a "mono-floral" (ie: from one source) honey, from the pollen and nectar of the Leptospermum (or Manuka) plant in New Zealand. Monofloral honey is a type of honey which has a high value in the marketplace because it has a distinctive flavor or other attribute due to its being predominantly from the nectar of one plant species. Monofloral honeys are also kept in separate tanks and labeled separately so as to command a premium price.

Wounds have been shown to heal more rapidly in an acidic environment, which helps to explain why MEDIHONEY® - with a pH near 3.5 - improves the wound healing environment. It has been shown that reducing the pH of a wound will help to modulate harmful proteases and improve oxygen diffusion.

Honey tends to become less viscous (more runny) when it comes into contact with abraded skin, open wounds, and wound fluid. This makes it very difficult to use honey as a wound dressing, without changing the dressing several times per day. The MEDIHONEY® line of dressings are comprised of various patents that address this issue. By using certain gelling agents, high honey content (greater than 50% weight/weight) dressings are manufactured to ensure that high levels of active medical-grade honey remains in contact with the wound for extended periods - up to 7 days - even in the presence of wound fluid.

Not all honeys are created equal. Only the active medical-grade Leptospermum honey used in MEDIHONEY® has the unique characteristics that make this it ideal for use as dressings on acute and chronic wounds and burns. However, even within this species of honey there is considerable variability. That is why global thought leaders have cautioned that, when using honey, clinicians should:

1. Select only those products that have been standardized to a certain specification with regard to the unique characteristics that make medical-grade honey beneficial for wounds and burns. This standardization process is achieved, in part, by observing the honey's activity level in the presence of catalase. Catalase is an enzyme found in wound fluid that breaks down a key active component in most honeys. Only the Leptospermum species has been shown to retain its initial activity level even in the presence of catalase. Notably, the medical-grade active Leptospermum honey used in MEDIHONEY® is controlled against a rigorous set of systems and standards, including a rating system to quantify level of medical activity in wounds and burns.

2. Also, honey straight from the supermarket should not be used on open wounds. Honey is known to contain Clostridium botulinum spores. When used as a dressing on wounds and burns, only sterilized honey products should be used. All MEDIHONEY® dressings have been sterilized. Additionally, honeys from the supermarket, as well as certain honeys sold as "medical grade", may contain unsafe levels of pollen and bee by-products. The honey used in MEDIHONEY® dressings goes through a rigorous filtration system so that only the honey remains. This proprietary process was developed over years, and is foundational to the specification for "medical-grade honey" currently being reviewed for inclusion into the British Pharmacopeia.

Chronic, non-healing wounds can be a serious problem for children as many currently available treatment modalities can be too harsh or toxic. At the 2010 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) and the Wound Healing Society (WHS), an international conference drawing clinicians from all over the globe which was held April 17-20 in Orlando, two clinicians presented case series illustrating the benefits of MEDIHONEY® dressings for this challenging patient population. MEDIHONEY® dressings are a unique key line of products whose active ingredient is medical-grade active Leptospermum honey (ALH), indigenous to New Zealand, that can succeed in alleviating wounds when other treatments have failed. Princeton-based Derma Sciences, Inc. owns the global rights to MEDIHONEY®.