Honey May Fight Ageing, Obesity and Cancer

Alternative Remedies: Honey
By Jessica Kiddle, The Scotsman (UK), 9/18/2007

Mary Poppins swore that a spoonful of sugar helped the medicine go down. But could a spoonful of something sweet have been the medicine all along?

Believing that it had anti-ageing properties, the ancient Egyptians used honey as a moisturiser, but now nature's sweetener is once again being heralded as a potent anti-ageing substance - but for the brain rather than the skin.

When you add this to the number of supposed benefits, which include the use of honey as a diet aid, relaxant, immune-system booster and even - in the case of Manuka honey grown from the native New Zealand Manuka bush - as an antibiotic, it's little wonder that it's fast becoming our favourite superfood.

This rise to the top of the health food tree is, in part, thanks to an Antipodean study recently published in New Scientist, which has found that eating honey improves memory and reduces feelings of anxiety…

The good news for honey fans doesn't stop there. Apparently, a spoonful of honey just before bed can help us lose weight. According to the Edinburgh authors of The Hibernation Diet, it prevents the body from going into starvation mode while you sleep…

Although the study was only small, research in Israel has also shown that Life Mel honey - a special type of honey made by bees that gorge on the nectar from specific herbs and other immune-boosting substances - can help cancer patients…