Does healthy honey count as natural medicine? While honey has been used as a food and natural medicine for millennia, claims about its health benefits remain contested. There must be more than 50 uses for healthy honey and we will talk about only a few.
Honey is a gentle food that most people enjoy on toast or in tea or as a sweetener for desserts but we may often ignore its medicinal qualities when enjoying it purely as a food.
With this in mind, let’s talk about how honey can benefit our health. What are the health benefits of raw honey?
Honey Helps With Allergies
The argument for honey as an allergy cure sounds goes something like this: honey contains pollen and local honey contains local pollen.
Exposure to local pollen in honey should prepare a child for pollen that floats in the air in a way that is controllable.
Additionally, it may be a way to expose the body to pollen that it doesn’t have a reaction to in combination with more harmful pollen varieties.
A community of mothers believes this idea with their whole hearts after trying it with their children. Mothers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan buy out the supply from local apiaries for a reason.
Yet, you’ll find very few scientists who will affirm this claim for honey.
An article by the Mayo Clinic describes honey as a sweet placebo. The placebo effect often produces the desired results, namely, reducing the effects of pollen on your system.
Even if it is all in our heads, how often does a placebo arrive as a spoonful of honey from mom, full of hope and love?
Healthy Honey Has A Positive Effect On Heart Health
Chemists report that honey contains phenols, flavonoids, and a variety of antioxidants.
These compounds benefit the vascular system and aid in overall system repair by offering cells the compounds that help us heal.
These compounds improve vein and artery dilation, which lowers blood pressure. They lower clotting risk too.
As antioxidants, they prevent bad cholesterol, LDL, and cell oxidation which causes damage over time.
In effect, even if you’re perfectly healthy, your body is constantly repairing the small amounts of damage incurred and these chemicals are an essential building block for that work.
Ultimately, While there is a lack of knowledge and scientific confidence in the health benefits of honey, it is clear that it contains certain chemicals that do in fact help our bodies heal. There are so many medicinal uses of honey!
Healthy Honey Suppresses Coughs Better Than Cough Syrup
As noted earlier, the Mayo Clinic report mentions one study on honey and coughing. In various studies, honey proved as effective as an ordinary cough suppressant.
The blog post describes honey as inexpensive and easy to find in stores but be aware, the quality of honey is critical since adulterated and diluted varieties don’t offer the same effects.
Given an hour before bedtime, the honey reduced coughing and improved sleep.
It’s a good choice to give to children old enough to tolerate honey and who may not be willing to take synthetic cough syrup.
The author, a medical doctor, states that honey dissolved in hot water with lemon helps children to sleep. Did you know about the benefits of honey with hot water?
Healthy Honey Improves Memory
Hindawi, the scientific journal of alternative medicine, shared a study that supports honey as a memory supplement.
The authors support the positive nootropic effects of honey. Nootropics are drugs and supplements that improve cognitive functions, including creativity, learning, and memory.
The phenols contained in many raw kinds of honey seem to relieve oxidative stress on brain tissue.
When it comes to remembering details, less stress of any kind is better than more stress.
The team found the beneficial effects in single-flower kinds of honey, like tupelo honey, or manuka flower honey especially.
Healthy Honey Improves Mood And Well-Being
Doctor Manoj K. Ahuja discusses how honey increases a vital neurotransmitter called serotonin. Serotonin improves mood as a direct effect.
Serotonin changes into melatonin, which improves the quality of sleep. No wonder why Tupelo honey fans love to enjoy a teaspoon of honey in their night time cup of herbal tea.
One study claims that honey increases testosterone production in men. A beekeeper in Asheville, North Carolina takes three ounces of honey instead of a pill.
Honey has a positive effect on nitric oxide in the blood, a component of male performance and female arousal.
There are also benefits of honey on skin. Health benefits of honey on your face and neck are known in beauty treatments to help open pores. Honey’s antioxidants, antiseptic and antibacterial properties make this ingredient a go-to for fighting acne.
It’ll open your pores and get rid of blackheads while keeping your skin hydrated all day long!
There is so much you can do and you can use honey in so many ways. Do you know the health benefits of honey and cinnamon? That will be for a future article.
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Author Bio:
Maggie graduated from Utah Valley University with a degree in communication and writing. In her spare time, she loves to dance, read, and bake. She also enjoys traveling and scouting out new brunch locations. If you are looking for tupelo honey, Maggie recommends you look into Smiley Honey.
