Saturday, May 23, 2015

Video: Manuka Honey is Earning Praise for Its Healing Benefits

New York Daily News

This honey is on the money.

Manuka honey — a super-expensive version of the ancient sweetener that’s packed with 100 times more of an antibacterial compound than regular honey — has become the trendy treatment for strep throat, dry skin, infections, gum pain, burns and even zits.

Tennis champ Novak Djokovic wrote in his memoir that eating two spoonfuls a day give him a boost on the court. Gwyneth Paltrow singled it out on her lifestyle site, Goop. And Scarlett Johansson told Style.com that when she spreads a bit of manuka honey on her skin, she gets “an amazing glow.”

"It's a natural cure for anything from acne to a cut on the leg," says celeb facialist Joanna Vargas, who works with fresh-faced stars Julianne Moore, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Karlie Kloss and uses manuka in her face masks.

Vargas says a thin layer — about a teaspoon’s worth — atop the skin for 10 minutes is all you need.

But manuka honey’s restorative properties apparently go deeper than the surface thanks to high levels of methylglyoxal, the antimicrobial that acolytes swear gives the honey a variety of health benefits.

“Other honeys don’t have as much potency against infectious agents,” says Dr. Julia Tzu of Wall Street Dermatology, who notes that manuka has components that fight the antibiotic-resistant skin infection MRSA.

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