Sweet Victory: When The Science Says The Farm Beats Pharma

Some of the most powerful medicines provided to us are actually in our kitchen cupboard, “pretending” to be condiments, spices or foods.  Some we are too familiar with to readily recognize them for their astounding health benefits, even though we may be consuming them daily.

Honey, for instance, has too many traditional medical uses to name, with at least 60 confirmed and documented in the Western, “science-based” medical model, as well.

Did you know, for instance, that certain honeys have the ability to destroy the much-feared MRSA “super-germs” you may have been hearing about of late?  Manuka honey, which comes from bees gathering the nectar from Manuka flowers in New Zealand, has been documented to suppress this form of Staphyloccous auerus, which is known to be resistant to the antibiotic methicillin (MRSA). Here are a few studies on the topic:

• Healing of an MRSA-colonized, hydroxyurea-induced leg ulcer with honey. J Dermatolog Treat. 2001 Mar;12(1):33-6. PMID: 12171686
• Bacteriological changes in sloughy venous leg ulcers treated with manuka honey or hydrogel: an RCT. J Wound Care. 2008 Jun;17(6):241-4, 246-7. PMID: 18666717
• Manuka honey inhibits cell division in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2011 Nov ;66(11):2536-42. Epub 2011 Sep 7. PMID: 21903658

Another remarkable anti-infective property of manuka honey is its ability to reduce dental plaque formation when used as the active ingredient in mouthwash.  Manuka honey is actually more effective than the chemical chlorehexidine, as demonstrated in a study published in 2010 in the journal Contemporary Clinical Dentistry.

It doesn’t take a special type of honey, however, to exhibit amazing effects vis-à-vis conventional drugs.  Regular honey has been shown to be superior to acyclovir in treating recurrent herpes simplex lesions topically in both the mouth and genitalia. In a study published in 2004 in the journal Medical Science Monitor, researchers found the following remarkable results:

For labial herpes, the mean duration of attacks and pain, occurrence of crusting, and mean healing time with honey treatment were 35%, 39%, 28% and 43% better, respectively, than with acyclovir treatment. For genital herpes, the mean duration of attacks and pain, occurrence of crusting, and mean healing time with honey treatment were 53%, 50%, 49% and 59% better, respectively, than with acyclovir. Two cases of labial herpes and one case of genital herpes remitted completely with the use of honey. The lesions crusted in 3 patients with labial herpes and in 4 patients with genital herpes. With acyclovir treatment, none of the attacks remitted, and all the lesions, labial and genital, developed crust. No side effects were observed with repeated applications of honey, whereas 3 patients developed local itching with acyclovir. [emphasis added]

We are actually only scratching the surface here, when it comes to natural substances that have been scientifically vetted to be superior to their would-be drug equivalents. GreenMedInfo.com contains an ongoing research project under the keyword “Superiority of Natural Substances versus Drugs,” which contains research on 140 natural substances that have been compared to drugs and been shown superior. We have another keyword called “Natural Substances versus Drugs” with an additional 167 studies showing a natural substance of at least equivalent efficacy vis-à-vis a drug.

The point is not to try to show that one form of medicine is better and should therefore dominate and supplant the other, rather, that there is a legitimate place for natural medicine alongside the conventional, drug-based form, and that this is not based strictly on subjective or anecdotal experience (which is valuable), but also the scientific evidence itself, which many critics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) falsely claim does not even exist.