Study: Honey Could Target Age-Related Memory Decline, Anxiety

Honey Linked to Delayed Ageing
In The News (UK), 9/13/2007

Honey could be used to target age-related problems including memory decline, scientists have discovered.

Studies on mice found that those on diets including honey had better spatial memory and were less anxious.

Lynne Chepulis and Nicola Starkey of the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, raised rats on diets containing either ten per cent honey, eight per cent sucrose or no sugar at all for 12 months.

According to the New Scientist magazine, honey-fed rats spent almost twice as much time in the open sections of an 'assessment maze', which the researchers say suggests that they were less anxious.

They were also more likely to spend time in new sections of a Y-shaped maze, suggesting that they knew where they had been before and had better spatial memory…

The researchers propose that honey may improve memory due to its antioxidant properties, which help to prevent free radicals damaging cells in the body…