Forget Manuka, Kanuka is the New Superhoney
By Shaun Holt, Infonews, 5/4/2012
New Zealand kanuka honey has double the levels of
bug-killing manuka factor according to work recently published by Crown
Research Institute Industrial Research Limited.
Medical researcher Professor Shaun Holt said that the
results were an exciting development in his work to make pharmaceutical
products from New Zealand honey. “Recently published research has shown two
things. Firstly, manuka factor is important and will approximately double the
anti-microbial effects of honey. And secondly, kanuka honey contains around
double the amount of the main compound that comprises the manuka factor than
most of the potent manuka honeys available” he said.
Scientists were surprised to find that honey made from
kanuka, the lesser known cousin of manuka, contained such a high level of
manuka factor. Professor Holt suggests “that with the ongoing success of manuka
honey, few people were interested in whether there might be even better honeys
out there”…
He has ambitious plans to create the next GlaxoSmithKline in
HoneyLab, a company he has co-founded to develop pharmaceutical medicines based
on kanuka honey. He said that whilst other companies looked at levels of
chemicals in honey, his work was focused on whether pharmaceutical honey
actually helped people with medical conditions, and the early results were that
it is very effective.
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