Michael Radigan

HNSC: 4250

Traditional Healing Remedies: Honey

Having grown up in upstate New York, I frequently suffered from seasonal allergies like

the rest of my maternal family. These allergies would range from congestion due to frequent

sinuous infections to flare-ups of atopic dermatitis. I frequently got steroid treatment for my

eczema as we were never able to find a trigger other than time of year. As I grew older and

became more aware of this, I have relied less on topical steroids have found some relief in

overall better skin treatment like shorter showers and moisturizing.

Roughly 10 years ago my maternal Grandmother started bee keeping as a hobby and

soon, some of my aunts would cultivate their own hives. From visiting a bunch of events hosted

by other beekeepers they picked up little anecdotal tips for seasonal allergies and overall

disease prevention through using bee products. One of these, was eating raw local honey

seasonally to introduce the allergens (pollen) to the body in small amounts before the fall and

spring. The other one that my grandma heard of recently was the effects that bee propolis had

on disease prevention and management. She swears to it to this day that the reason for her

lack of allergies, where she also suffered from sinuous infections, was due to taking her tincture

of propolis whenever she started to feel symptoms coming on.

Although honey seemed to help with many different symptoms that come from

infection and inflammation in my own family I was really curious to read about scientific

journals and the clinical application of honey and its various components.

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 The first of the three journals that piqued my interest was a clinical and mechanistic

study conducted by Alangari et al. that sought to examine honeys effectiveness at treating

eczema atopic dermatitis. Because AD is a condition that has overlapping causes, the

researchers did a clinical study that followed symptoms, a cellular examination to study

mechanism, and a bacteriological study to account for the common infection that comes with

open sores that are common with eczema (Alangari et al., 2017). In the clinical portion of the

study, those that received topical honey treatment did benefit from a relief in symptoms when

compared to the control. The researchers also note that those patients that received treatment

also had temporary relief from symptoms after the study even if they didn’t continue treatment

on their own. For the bacteriological study, the researchers were surprised to find that the

honey treatment had little to no effect on the topical flora in vitro. Instead, they discovered that

the mechanism of interest was the cellular degranulation of mast cells induced by upregulation

of CCL26. In vitro they discovered that honey could reduce the risk of inappropriate cell

proliferation and death resulting in dermatitis. In the researcher’s conclusion they found that

the over production of mast cells leads to the signs and symptoms of AD, and that honey was

successful in treatment due to its ability to regulate mast cells.

In the second journal of interest, researchers aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of

honey in reducing the level and length of coughing in respiratory infections among children

(Oduwole et al., 2014). In this study researchers used different types of interventions that

compared effectiveness of honey, honey-based cough syrups, over the counter medications,

antibiotics, and placebos. After analyzing the data collected the researchers found that honey

was comparably effective at treating symptoms with cough suppressants such as

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dextromethorphan. Although by a small margin they also found that honey was slightly better

at reducing cough frequency then the antihistamine diphenhydramine. When comparing the

use of honey to either placebo or no treatment, they also found significant improvement in

symptom longevity.

In the third journal, the researchers sought to examine the effectiveness of honey in

treating upper respiratory track infections (Abuelgasim et al., 2020). Because of the growing

concern for over prescription of antibiotics contributing to widespread increase in antibiotic

resistant strains of bacteria, this research aimed to find alternate forms of treatment for URTIs

in cases where the patent may not need the strength of doxycycline or other oral antibiotics. In

order to examine honeys effectiveness, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis and reviews

previous studies that sought to answer similar questions (Abuelgasim et al., 2020). After

compiling the results of 14 studies with moderate levels of bias, the researchers found that

honey provided better care for patents combined symptom scores than the usual care

provided. Looking into those combined symptoms, they also discovered that honey not only

improved cough frequency, but also cough severity. After analyzing the data, the researchers

took note of honeys potential to mitigate the reliance on antibiotics for low-risk infections as

those found in URTIs. In addition to honeys accessibility and price compared to pharmacological

antibiotics, they found that the use of honey could greatly slow down the rate of antimicrobial

resistance across the board.

After reading different research related to honey through the years, I came to discover

that little research has been done on how honey effects the immune response related to

seasonal allergies. What was helpful in developing my understanding, was looking at how

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honey effected the symptoms of seasonal allergies ranging from eczema to upper respiratory

tract infections. Although I have delt with atopic dermatitis for most of my life, it was only two

years ago that I was told that allergies could be a potential trigger. Although cold/dry weather

has also been one of my biggest triggers, I was told that the systematic inflammation caused by

seasonal allergies could worsen my already poor response. After learning about the use of

honey in treating AD, I will defiantly be giving it a try during my next flair up. With congestion

and upper respiratory track infections also being a common symptom of allergies, it was really

interesting to see how honey was used as an effective form of treatment. Although the studies

that were shown were not directly related to the systematic inflammatory response caused by

allergies, I would be curious to see if new studies try to see honeys use can be used to treat the

cause of allergic reactions instead of just its manifestations.

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 Reference page

Abuelgasim, H., Albury, C., & Lee, J. (2020). Effectiveness of honey for symptomatic relief in
upper respiratory tract infections: A systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Evidence-
Based Medicine, 26(2), 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2020-111336

Alangari, A. A., Morris, K., Lwaleed, B. A., Lau, L., Jones, K., Cooper, R., & Jenkins, R.
(2017). Honey is potentially effective in the treatment of atopic dermatitis: Clinical and
mechanistic studies. Immunity, Inflammation and Disease, 5(2), 190–199.
https://doi.org/10.1002/iid3.153

Oduwole, O., Meremikwu, M. M., Oyo-Ita, A., & Udoh, E. E. (2014). Honey for acute cough in
children. Evidence-Based Child Health: A Cochrane Review Journal, 9(2), 401–444.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ebch.1970