Doctor to Study Honey as Diabetic-Ulcer Treatment

By Kawanza Newson, The Milwaukee Journal (USA), 5/20/2007

Jennifer Eddy vividly remembers the 79-year-old old man with foot ulcers so severely infected that his dried and deteriorated skin caused the loss of two toes.

Two surgeons urged amputation of the man's lower legs to save his life, but the man opted to go home, and he then lost a third toe.

Eddy, a family physician taught to never give up on a patient, approached the man with an idea she'd first heard about during medical school.

She told him that honey had been used since the early days to treat wounds and asked if he'd be willing to try it.

The man agreed and placed a thick application of honey he'd purchased at a supermarket on his sore each day.

Within three weeks, Eddy says, the man's foot began creating nice, healthy tissue. It took about a year for the ulcer to clear up.

Now, more than three years later, Eddy is conducting her own randomized study to test the usefulness of topical honey for treatment of diabetic foot ulcers on 40 patients throughout Wisconsin. So far, five people have enrolled in the study to determine how much their wound size decreases within four weeks of twice-daily use of grocery-variety honey.

"It's just a medical intervention that should be evaluated like anything else," said Eddy, an assistant professor with the University of Wisconsin Medical School who practices at the Eau Claire Family Clinic.

The study is funded with a $100,000 grant from the Wisconsin Partnership Fund for Health and a $30,000 grant from the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation. A podiatrist is donating his time for seeing patients.

Eddy expects to have enough information within two years to draw some conclusions on the effectiveness of honey and will decide if a larger study is needed.

"If it works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't," she said. "But the good thing about these chronic diabetic ulcers is if honey is successful, not only will patients benefit but all of society will benefit (because) it's a tremendous cost savings."…