Kanuka Has Higher Antimicrobial Activity Than Manuka Honey

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.