Audio: Honey Wound Dressing Helps Prevent Foot Amputation

The Buzz About Medicinal Honey
American Public Media, 2/19/2008

Listen to the Audio.

A special kind of honey derived from the Manuka plant is showing up in doctor's offices as a wound remedy. Caitlan Carroll reports how some patients have seen dramatic results from the bee by-product.

Kai Ryssdal: Ice cream maker Haagen Dazs announced today that it's giving $150,000 dollars to Penn State and $100,000 to the University of California Davis for bee research...

Caitlan Carroll: The ancient Greeks and Egyptians waxed lyrical about the healing properties of honey. Religious scriptures tout it as a "product of the Gods."

Doctors used honey during World War II to treat soldiers' wounds. Antibiotics eventually displaced honey as a remedy, but now the sticky stuff's making a comeback.

Ursulla Jenkins: A lot of people go, "Oh my god, you used honey to cure your foot?" I hear that all the time.

Ursulla Jenkins shattered a bone in her foot in late 2006. Her doctor removed the bone fragments, but the wound wouldn't heal. It stayed open for months. Jenkins and her doctor Randy Nordyke even discussed amputation.

Randy Nordyke: It was white, non-healing, draining... looked like a dry lake bed.

Nordyke decided to try out a type of honey made in New Zealand. It's derived from what the Maori people call Manuka or tea tree plant.

The honey worked wonders on Jenkins...