Posted on 01/03/2023 12:20:20 PM PST by Red Badger
Honey is a sweet, thick liquid made by bees using the nectar of flowers. It is commonly used as a natural sweetener in foods and beverages and has been valued for its medicinal properties for centuries.
According to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto, consuming raw honey from a single floral source may have significant benefits for cardiometabolic health.
In a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials, the researchers found that honey consumption was associated with lower fasting blood glucose, total and LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol, triglycerides, and a marker of fatty liver disease. Additionally, honey consumption was linked to higher levels of HDL (‘good’) cholesterol and some markers of inflammation.
“These results are surprising because honey is about 80 percent sugar,” said Tauseef Khan, a senior researcher on the study and a research associate in nutritional sciences at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “But honey is also a complex composition of common and rare sugars, proteins, organic acids, and other bioactive compounds that very likely have health benefits.”
Previous research has shown that honey can improve cardiometabolic health, especially in vitro and animal studies. The current study is the most comprehensive review to date of clinical trials, and it includes the most detailed data on processing and floral source.
The results were recently published in the journal Nutrition Reviews.
“The word among public health and nutrition experts has long been that ‘a sugar is a sugar,’ said John Sievenpiper, principal investigator and an associate professor of nutritional sciences and medicine at U of T, who is also a clinician-scientist at Unity Health Toronto. “These results show that’s not the case, and they should give pause to the designation of honey as a free or added sugar in dietary guidelines.”
Sievenpiper and Khan emphasized that the context of the findings was critical: clinical trials in which participants followed healthy dietary patterns, with added sugars accounting for 10 percent or less of daily caloric intake.
“We’re not saying you should start having honey if you currently avoid sugar,” said Khan. “The takeaway is more about replacement — if you’re using table sugar, syrup, or another sweetener, switching those sugars for honey might lower cardiometabolic risks.”
The researchers included 18 controlled trials and over 1,100 participants in their analysis. They assessed the quality of those trials using the GRADE system and found there was a low certainty of evidence for most of the studies, but that honey consistently produced either neutral or beneficial effects, depending on processing, floral source, and quantity.
The median daily dose of honey in the trials was 40 grams or about two tablespoons. The median length of trial was eight weeks. Raw honey drove many of the beneficial effects in the studies, as did honey from monofloral sources such as Robinia (also marketed as acacia honey) — a honey from False Acacia or Black Locust Trees — and clover, which is common in North America.
Khan said that while processed honey clearly loses many of its health effects after pasteurization — typically 65 degrees Celsius for at least 10 minutes — the effect of a hot drink on raw honey depends on several factors, and likely would not destroy all its beneficial properties.
He also noted other ways to consume unheated honey, such as with yogurt, as a spread, and in salad dressings.
Future studies should focus on unprocessed honey, Khan said, and from a single floral source. The goal would be higher quality evidence and a better understanding of the many compounds in honey that can work wonders for health. “We need a consistent product that can deliver consistent health benefits,” said Khan. “Then the market will follow.”
Reference:
“Effect of honey on cardiometabolic risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis” by Amna Ahmed, Zujaja Tul-Noor, Danielle Lee, Shamaila Bajwah, Zara Ahmed, Shanza Zafar, Maliha Syeda, Fakeha Jamil, Faizaan Qureshi, Fatima Zia, Rumsha Baig, Saniya Ahmed, Mobushra Tayyiba, Suleman Ahmad, Dan Ramdath, Rong Tsao, Steve Cui, Cyril W C Kendall, Russell J de Souza, Tauseef A Khan and John L Sievenpiper, 16 November 2022, Nutrition Reviews.
DOI: 10.1093/nutrit/nuac086
The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and Diabetes Canada.
Dipped in honey... the ONLY way to eat locusts.
“What I always heard is that you want honey from your region i.e., maybe your own state or even county, as it is from local plants...and in addition to cardiac help it might help with allergies/inflammation/local immunity. Who knows?”
Honey, even if it is local or from your own property, will not help your allergies. The pollen that makes you sneeze and the pollen the bees bring into their hive for protein and raise their brood are two different things and honey, even raw honey contains very little pollen.
Honey is better for you than sugar and it digests faster. Honey is probably always a better option than sugar, but by no means is honey a miracle cure.
“According to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto, consuming raw honey from a single floral source may have significant benefits for cardiometabolic health.”
I buy whatever brand is the cheapest. Thanks, Brandon!
I have splurged on some really good, locally sourced honey through the years, though.
The difference is like Night and Day. :)
Our Mom was an advocate of Cod Liver Oil.
Ugh! *SHUDDER*
Now you’ve done it! The rest of this thread will be, ‘Ginger v. Maryanne!’ ;)
Mary Ann.
Well, we obviously know where YOU stand on the subject, LOL!
In 1993 I married Mary Ann. The wisdom and joy of that decision has only been surpassed by accepted Jesus Christ as my savior eight years later. Love my Mary Ann, My Darlin’.
Any beekeeper will tell you that “clover” honey is not made from clover alone. Likewise the other designations. Nobody tells the bees what flowers to visit, except maybe the queen.
Love it.
Great answer!
I doubt I can consume enough to be beneficial, as I am Type II.
;^) Some thing happens with cooking topics...
“Single floral source”
My father kept bees along with farming in southeast Nebraska. He sold honey by mail during WWII. Sugar was rationed, but the government didn’t care about honey.
Probably early August smart weed would bloom in the fields which had produced wheat and/or oats and were not plowed yet. The fields were vast zones of pink flowers. In the hot dry summers nothing else was blooming that time of year. The bees would gather the necter and would store it. It was very dark and tasted so bad that hardly anyone would eat it. Dad left it mostly for the bees to overwinter on. However, there was/were one customer who special ordered the smart weed
Bees don’t care how the honey tastes, but people do.
You want the bees to store the fall goldenrod for the winter and harvest honey from earlier in the season but that is not always an option. You harvest what you can take and always leave enough for the colony to get through winter and summer dearths.
Another grant money grift. The ancient Egyptians knew all about the benefits of raw honey and used it extensively.
Honey has gone thru the roof here. A small jar of honey is now $5......................
I started getting honey from a local beekeeper and noticed I stopped having hay fever soon afterwards. Now it's a morning staple with some tea.
Well I was thinking about that other Honey, but well anyway, our local farmer’s market (local stuff) sells local honey for $23 a quart, quality stuff.
If you the honey helps with your seasonal allergies, that is great and keep eating honey and make sure that it is raw honey not simply labeled “Local Honey.” The term Local Honey means very little to do with where the honey is produced and where it is bought.
As for seasonal allergies, the most common causes are ragweed, tree, grasses and mold.
Obviously, bees do not get nectar from mold but ragweed, grasses and oak, pecan and cedar, do not produce nectar.
Furthermore, people are allergic to pollen that is aerosolized and bees gather pollen in its solid form.
AS for honey, honey is made of sucrose, glucose, and around 17% water and less that one half of one percent pollen.
If the honey helps, keep eating the honey and keep your local beekeeper in business.
My wife, the kids and I all have seasonal allergies and we eat a lot of honey to the point of having jars labeled to the month or even the week the honey was produced.
The honey may ease some symptoms, the enzymes in honey are beneficial and be better for your than sugar, but the science does not show that honey is a large factor in curing allergies.
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