Cancer doctors turn to the honey that can heal

A cancer hospital is posting honey from Nz to check its healing energy on patients.

Doctors have switched to manuka honey to ascertain if it can benefit treat throat and mouth cancer patients after surgery.

They hope the honey will lessen the patients' likelihood of contracting the MRSA superbug which help lessen inflammation from the wounds.

The pioneering initiative is happening at Christie Hospital in Manchester.

Although it's a fresh approach there, the healing qualities of honey happen to be noted for 1000's of years.

It had been revered through the ancient Greeks and Egyptians like a effective medicinal agent and used aid healing burns and sores.

Recently, researchers have progressively outlined the forces of manuka honey, that is exclusively flavoured and more dark than usual kinds.

Researchers believe its healing qualities are because of the existence of the enzyme glucose oxidase, which produces peroxide - an antiseptic - and it is high sugar concentration, which suppresses microbial growth.

Research in 2003 reported that manuka honey outperformed conventional antiseptics and anti-biotics in treating infected publish-operative wounds after Caesarean sections and hysterectomies.

And for several years, researchers in the College of Wales Institute in Cardiff happen to be researching its possibility to fight hospital superbugs like the deadly MRSA bacteria.

Within the last two several weeks, nurses at Manchester Royal Infirmary have used special honey-covered dressings to deal with patients.

Now 60 patients at Christie Hospital, an worldwide leader in cancer development and research, are getting involved in research to ascertain if the honey can prevent infections which may be resistant against anti-biotics.

Concern over MRSA

During the last fifteen years, survival rates for throat and mouth cancer patients have enhanced due to the effective mixture of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

But side-effects incorporate a condition known as mucositis, an inflammatory reaction and infection from the tissue which lines the mouth, throat and digestive tract.

Concerns also have intensified recently within the spread from the MRSA superbug that has already become resistant against most typical anti-biotics.

Once it will get in to the body, through wounds or tubes, it may cause contamination that may prove fatal to a person already destabilized by illness.

Within the United kingdom, it's believed that MRSA along with other infections for example clostridium difficile kill as much as 5,000 patients each year, despite an enormous government drive to wash up hospitals.

Other estimations claim the actual figure might be two times as high.

Christie Hospital has got the fifth-cheapest rate for MRSA infections in the united states. The honey has been trialled around the throat and mouth cancer patients simply because they are among the most susceptible groups to hospital-acquired infections after going through surgery and radiotherapy.

Dr Nick Slevin, the specialist leading the programme, stated yesterday: "Manuka honey has special anti-inflammatory and anti-infection qualities and it is thought to lessen the probability of MRSA infection."

The honey is created by bees which mainly feast upon the manuka rose bush, indigenous to Nz.

Small jars cost around f12 each in health food shops but Christie Hospital is purchasing in large quantities - to date posting 400kg for that clinical tests. A healthcare facility is depending on donations to finance the study.