Honey Has Negative Impact on Leishmaniasis Ulcers

Effect of Topical Honey Application Along with Intralesional Injection of Glucantime in the Treatment of the Cutaneous Leishmaniasis
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2007 Apr 27;7(1):13

BACKGROUND: Leishmaniasis is an Endemic disease in Iran. Although many treatments have been suggested for this disease, there hasn't been an effective and safe treatment for this condition. Regarding to the healing effect of honey in the chronic ulcers and its reported efficacy on the cutaneous leishmaniasis, we performed a study to better evaluate the therapeutic effect of honey in the cutaneous leishmaniasis and its final scar…

RESULTS: 90 patients completed the study course and 10 patients left out the study. In the glucantime alone treated group, 32 patients (71.1%) had complete cure where as in the group treated with both glucantime & topical honey,only 23 patients (51.1%) achieved complete cure. This difference was significant statistically (p=0.04). our study showed that topical honey, when used as an adjuvant therapy with intralesional glucantime, decreased the effect of glucantime in healing of the leishmaniasis ulcer. In fact, patients who were treated with this combination treatment had less improvement in their lesions as compared with intralesional glucantime alone.
CONCLUSIONS: Although our study showed a negative effect of honey on the healing of the leishmaniasis ulcers, further studies to better clarify the efficacy of honey in this condition is needed. We suggest that in another study the efficacy of Manuka Honey is evaluated against cutaneous leishmaniasis.