Research Proves MGO™ Manuka Honey Accurately Measures Antibacterial ActivityScoop Independent News, 5/28/2009
Claims that the MGO™ Manuka Honey rating system misrepresents the antibacterial activity of manuka honey were conclusively dismissed today by new scientific research.
According to Active Manuka Honey Association general manager John Rawcliffe the MGO™ Manuka Honey system does not fully measure antibacterial activity and therefore is misleading.
AMHA licenses the use of the rival UMF test, which rates manuka honey in comparison to the standard laboratory disinfectant phenol, a test which beekeepers complain is prone to error and has problems with “repeatability”.
Honey health science company Manuka Health New Zealand Ltd, which certifies the level of the active ingredient methylglyoxal, today made scientific research available which proves its MGO™ Manuka Honey system accurately measures antibacterial activity.
Chief executive Kerry Paul said today the research finally settled the issue of whether MGO™ Manuka Honey was valid for commercial labelling purposes. Critics had claimed for years that the antibacterial activity in manuka honey depended on other substances in addition to methylglyoxal.
“The latest research proves conclusively this is not the case,” he said. “The researchers specifically say that methylglyoxal is a valid measure of antibacterial activity.”
The research was conducted by the Institute of Food Chemistry at the Technical University of Dresden, which identified methylglyoxal in 2006 as manuka honey’s dominant antibacterial constituent.
In a peer-reviewed paper published this month in the Czech Journal of Food Sciences, the German researchers show “a perfect linear correlation” between methylglyoxal levels in 61 manuka honey samples and their antibacterial ratings in equivalent phenol concentration.
The authors, Julia Atrott and Professor Thomas Henle, said the purpose of their study was to investigate the extent to which methylglyoxal was responsible for the non-peroxide antibacterial activity of manuka honey.
The research checked whether it was possible to back-reference from methylglyoxal content to the antibacterial properties of a honey sample. The linear correlation showed this was the case.
“This clearly underlines that methylglyoxal is the dominant bioactive compound in manuka honey and above concentrations of around 150 mg/kg is directly responsible for the characteristic antibacterial properties of manuka honey,” the paper says…
“In conclusion, methylglyoxal is a unique antibacterial compound found in high concentrations in manuka honeys from New Zealand and directly responsible for the specific antibacterial activity of these samples.
“Methylglyoxal can serve as a suitable tool for the labelling of the bioactivity of commercial products.”…
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