What Happens In Your Body If You Eat Honey Every Day?

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0:55Mornings have a rhythm. You can hear it. Feel it. And at Quaker, we fuel it with 100 % whole grain oats and a good source of fiber in every bowl, helping you turn that rhythm into your soundtrack for a great day. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. I, oh, let's go. I, oh, let's go. Quite possibly the greatest healing food today that is one of the most underutilized is honey. Did you know that honey never spoils? Archaeologists discovered 3 ,000-year-old pots of honey in Egyptian tombs that were still edible. Due to its unique properties that prevent spoilage and also when we use that on our body, it can help with anti-aging and healing in a powerful way.

1:49Now, the benefits of honey and bee products go well beyond its sweet flavor. These natural substances found in honey are some of the most powerful healing compounds on planet Earth. And today I'll be talking about how honey is medicine and how it can help fight infections, actually balance blood sugar, ease allergies, coughs, reduce pain, and support longevity, and in some cases, even fight cancer. We'll also cover how other bee products like propolis, royal jelly, and bee pollen, and something called MGO, have been used for thousands of years for their medicinal properties. Today, you're going to learn everything you'd ever need to know about the healing powers of honey.

2:33Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show.

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3:45Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes can be slow when network is busy. See terms. This episode is brought to you by Manucora Honey. Go to manucora.com forward slash axe and use the code AXE at checkout for a special discount for my listeners only. Okay, honey was once considered liquid gold and it's used not only as a food, but also throughout history, we see it being used as a sacred form of medicine and even currency in certain cultures. We know from reading historical texts that for over 5 ,000 years, humans have actually revered bees and honey for their nutritional, medicinal, and even symbolic value.

4:26In ancient Egypt, honey was so prized that pharaohs were called bee kings and temples were referred to as mansions of bees. In fact, the Egyptians used honey in over 500 medical prescriptions, including wound dressing and embalming. Honey is also mentioned more than 60 times in the Bible. We know in Proverbs 24, 13, it says, eat honey, my son, for it is good. Honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. And these are the words of Solomon, who's called sometimes the wisest man to ever live. Exodus 3, 8 says, the promised land is described as a land flowing with milk and honey. And then Ezekiel 2717 mentions honey as a valuable trade item in ancient markets.

5:15So what exactly is honey? And why should you make it a regular part of your health routine? Well, here's what it is. Honey is a thick golden substance made by bees from flower nectar. It's composed of more than 180 different compounds, including natural sugars, enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, polyphenols, and pollen. And raw honey is a natural antibacterial, anti-inflammatory superfood. It also has antiviral, antifungal, anti-cancer, and anti-diabetic properties. It's basically an immune booster, gut healer, and beauty remedy all wrapped into one amazing superfood. So what makes honey so special?

5:58Well, one, raw, unpasteurized honey contains antioxidants, especially powerful phenolic compounds. Darker honey has more antioxidants than lighter honeys. It has enzymes like amylase and glucose oxidase. It has organic acids, bee-derived compounds we've talked about, like propolis, royal jelly, and bee pollen. It has hydrogen peroxide and over 200 bioactive substances. One of the greatest indicators of of honey being so incredibly powerful, it has to do with actually the lifespan and the health of beekeepers. You know, beekeepers live longer. In fact, did you know that beekeepers, when they looked at what professions lived the longest, beekeepers were number one.

6:44You know, there was a medical journal that published this. It was in the Springer Journal. And they said, we found that the telomere length of male beekeepers was significantly longer, suggesting that beekeepers may have longer lives compared to non-beekeepers. And this was looking at telomere length, which is one of the greatest indicators of longevity in terms of medical tests. There are several prominent beekeepers who have lived well under their 80s, 90s, and become centurions. And I think part of this has to do with when you look at aparis and these beekeepers, their diet consists of honey.

7:16Also, I've read some studies about sort of the noise that bees give off and just being in nature as beekeepers is also tremendously beneficial for their health. Now, I want to walk you through some different types of honey. There are actually more than 300 types of honey recognized today with varieties relating to the different kinds of nectar collected by the bees. And sadly, as much as 70 % of store-bought honey today is fake. It's filtered to remove beneficial pollen, pasteurized and diluted. In fact, one study out of Texas A &M University found that 76 % of store-bought honey is basically filtered sugar.

7:59And the reality is fake honey is harmful for the honey industry because it drives prices down and makes it hard for real raw honey to compete. And the other thing is it's bad for people. If you're doing not real honey, if you're doing this fake honey, you're not getting all of the enzymes and the hydrogen peroxide and the other healing compounds. And it's going to affect your body more like conventional sugar would. For the greatest benefits, you really want to look for raw, local, or a Manuka-based honey that is lab tested whenever possible. And again, there are different types of honey depending upon the benefits you want to do.

8:37The honey I consume the most is raw local honey from my local farmer's market, along with Manuka honey. Those are the honeys that I use the most frequently. I like Manuka honey because it's really high in this compound called MGO, which has those highest hydrogen peroxide-like benefits. So it is the most antibacterial. It's the best for gut health. It's the best for clearing out candida. That's why I like Manuka honey. And then I like the local honey because it's probably the best overall for allergies. The first, let me talk about raw honey. You want to do raw honey only because it's unfiltered and unheated.

9:13And so it's going to maintain the enzymes and the healing compounds. As I mentioned with local honey, this is where it's so beneficial for allergies and for bolstering and strengthening up your immune system. Where local honey is going to strengthen your immune system in the way of helping act as a prebiotic and good microbial growth. Now, Manuka honey is sourced from the Manuka bush in New Zealand. Now, the manuka bush is part of the plant family along with eucalyptus and tea tree. So maybe you've heard of essential oils and using eucalyptus for your lung health or tea tree oil for its anti-fungal, anti-mold, antibacterial properties.

9:54Well, the manuka bush is that same family and has a lot of those similar compounds. So when the bees are getting nectar from the manuka bush, Again, similar to a eucalyptus bush or a tea tree bush. It has all of these powerful compounds. And one of these compounds that you're going to find in Manuka honey specifically is called methylglyoxal. Okay. And methylglyoxal is a potent antibacterial compound. This is excellent for clearing candida out of the gut and healing your gut. It's great for SIBO. It has anti-H pylori properties. It's good for skin repair and acne specifically and immune resilience.

10:35You know, a lot of my patients who have had leaky gut, SIBO, IBS, I will have them do primarily just Manuka honey as their only sweetener if they're going to use a sweetener. And there are loads of benefits there. I've had patients, I'll actually share a quick story here. My daughter had cradle cap and I was trying some different things on it, aloe, a number of other things. Finally, I said, okay, I'm going to try Manuka honey on here. In three days, completely gone. It was absolutely amazing. One of the unique properties about honey in general and why it lasts 3 ,000 years is it has the ability to maintain its exact moisture level, the perfect moisture level for healing.

11:15And so, you know, I had surgery years ago on my ankle. I tore off something called my tendon in my ankle and I had to have surgery. It was a real minor surgery, but they went in and had to cut open my ankle. and I did this blend of Manuka honey, calendula, and certain essential oils like helichrysum. And there's really almost no remains of scarring. And one of the reasons why it's so good for scarring is that it keeps the exact perfect moisture level to promote healing. And if the skin gets too dry, it doesn't heal as well. If it stays too wet, it takes longer to heal. Manuka keeps it that perfect, and all honey keeps it that perfect healing moisture level, which is why it's so beneficial.

11:58So again, Manuka honey has this MGO, which is very similar to like a natural and yet gentle on the body type of like, similar to hydrogen peroxide and this methylglyoxal for its healing benefits. So loads and loads of benefits. You know, there's a quote out of a medical journal, and this is the Food of Biosciences, and it says this, Manuka honey represents an alternative remedy for different ailments to include bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viral infections. So this journal says it's one of the single best things you could ever use to fight any type of infection. When buying Manuka honey, you want to look for high MGO rated Manuka honey.

12:35Again, one of the ones I've used many times over the years, because I always get this question, what brand do I recommend? Listen, there are several good brands out there. The one that I personally use, though, right now and trust and really like is Manukora. This is one that, again, we've been using at our home frequently. I've prescribed it and recommended to people for a number of health ailments. And so Manucora, if you want to get a great one, that is a great one to go out and get. Okay. I want to walk you through now eight health benefits of honey. Number one is wound and burn healing. Honey is a natural antimicrobial as we talked about.

13:10So it will keep an area from getting infected, but it also promotes tissue regeneration by keeping the moisture levels perfect, giving it antioxidants and other compounds to support healing. The other thing is it's got a high level of viscosity, which helps create a protective barrier around the area, which is another reason why it keeps areas from getting infected. There are clinical trials that show that honey significantly speeds healing time and reduces scarring in burns, surgical wounds, and in ulcers. So that's also good if somebody has ulcer of colitis or if somebody has stomach ulcers.

13:44So if you have digestive pain, honey is the best natural sweetener. One example of a specific study was in 2022, this was a meta-analysis, a really large-scale, multiple studies done in trauma care. And they found that honey was more effective than silver, which is currently considered the gold standard in topical burn treatments in treating partial thickness burns. In fact, when I have a burn, I put a mixture together, and it is a mixture of honey, silver silver gel and lavender essential oil. Okay. Those three together, if you ever have a burn, that is the perfect thing to put on there. Or if you only have one thing, just use honey.

14:26It's the best single of all three of those, but honey and lavender oil together are the perfect thing to help somebody heal from a burn. And as I mentioned, silver is typically the gold standard, the silver gel, when it comes to our silver creams, when it comes to treating burns and and scrapes and any sort of skin injury. I've got girls that fall all the time. In fact, sometimes it blows my mind. My almost two-year-old now, she falls 20 times a day and constantly scrapes the same area over and over again. And when she has those now, we do honey on there. Or we do our little mixture of honey and some essential oils and sometimes silver together.

15:06But I will tell you that when honey and silver-based creams go head-to-head, honey continually wins. Here's an example. There is a study done on 46 patients, honey-treated wounds healed on an average of 10.8 days compared to 15.3 days with just film dressings. Okay, so overall, when we look at these comparisons, honey's the best, silver's the next best. Again, I haven't seen one on essential oils alone, but again, lavender and helichrysum and some of those oils are also tremendously good, and I think mixing them together is the most beneficial. The number two benefit of honey is allergy relief.

15:42Local raw honey introduces small doses of regional pollen, helping reduce seasonal allergy symptoms. Think about it like this. It's like a natural vaccine or natural immunization. Your body gets a little bit more pollen, a little bit more pollen, a little bit more of these sort of local microbes. And your body builds up more and more of a tolerance and an immunity to those things that are in your local environment. There is a study published in the Journal of Frontiers in Pharmacology, and they found that honey can reduce seasonal allergy symptoms when consumed in amounts of about one tablespoon per day for four to eight weeks.

16:18I would say what I have most people do, though, is about a teaspoon or a heaping teaspoon throughout the entire year. I think that's the best way to naturally build up your immunity. There's another study published on allergy elimination using honey. This is a randomized study on 40 people with allergies, and they explored the effects of ingesting high doses of raw honey alongside loratinidine. This is a common antihistamine in patients with moderate to severe persistent allergies. Patients who took honey daily experienced greater and more sustained symptom relief than the control group. Improvements were seen in all four groups.

16:56However, the honey group had the greatest improvement of symptoms even after stopping the medication. What I love to do for allergies is pair raw local honey with propolis, another honey compound, if you want to see the biggest benefits. And in addition to that, I think herbs like quercetin, nettles, bromelain, a lot of these natural histamines, vitamin C, just boosting your immune system over time is helpful. And then spending more time outside, all of these can support getting rid of allergies naturally. Now, if you have really severe allergies, I like doing a combination of eating raw local honey a teaspoon every single day and doing something called slit therapy.

17:37You can do an immune test to see what environmental allergens you're allergic to and do these drops of what you're actually allergic to every day. And in anywhere from three months to maximum two years, it can reverse allergies for a lot of people. Well, again, you can look up SLIT therapy. I have a friend of mine who's a holistic doctor who is allergic to cats, reversed his allergy to cats. I've had people allergic to dairy, people allergic to pollen, grass, trees, you name it, and they've been able to do it via this natural form of immunization. But honey can be a great part of that therapy.

18:14Number three benefit of honey is immune boosting. Honey is rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, including polyphenols. These help regulate the immune system. Also, many honeys, of course, Manuka is higher, but all honey contains hydrogen peroxide and B-derived compounds, especially propolis, which studies have shown have antimicrobial effects. And as I mentioned, Manuka honey is considered one of the most powerful for fighting pathogens, such as streptococcus, staph, E. coli, H. pylori. So if you have any type of infection, viral, bacterial, parasitic, Manuka honey is the way to go for those specific conditions.

18:57But I would also say if you want to boost your immune system, do propolis. Propolis is that compound in honey with the greatest benefits. You can take a propolis supplement and a Manuka supplement, and that's a really powerful combo. Eat Manuka honey, one full teaspoon to a tablespoon a day, and you could do propolis as a supplement, and that's a great one-two punch at boosting and strengthening your immune system. It's even great for autoimmune disease as well. Lots of benefits there. Number four, honey offers digestive support. It soothes the gut lining. It helps balance bacteria and may suppress H.

19:31pylori. Now, this is the main bacteria that starts to overgrow, especially in SIBO. Manuka honey in particular is my favorite for SIBO. If you're looking for a protocol for SIBO. Now with SIBO, here's a few other tips. Eat smaller meals. Do not eat big meals. If you typically eat three meals a day and you still want to get enough calories, make it four and never eat more than you're 70 % full. I think white rice is really good with SIBO. Lean meat, steamed vegetables, but not overeating. Drinking ginger herbal tea. I really love ginger herbal tea and then using a little bit of manuka honey as your sweetener.

20:10and then soil-based probiotics, digestive enzymes. This is what's really going to move the needle with SIBO. But as a sweetener, Manuka honey, by far the best. Number five big benefit of honey is blood sugar regulation. Now, this surprises most people. But unlike processed sugar, honey has a much lower glycemic index. It has been shown to reduce fasting glucose and improve even your lipid profiles in some people with type 2 diabetes. It's very anti-inflammatory. Additionally, honey can lower something called homocysteine and C-reactive protein in normal and hyperlipidemic patients. And these effects are likely due to honey's antioxidant properties, which may reduce oxidative stress on the body, which of course helps heal the heart, lower cholesterol levels, and lower inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein, which is probably the biggest indicator, especially high sensitivity C-reactive protein, is sort of test for inflammation in your body, even cellular inflammation.

21:12And honey helps with it. Now, I want to go back to a Bible verse that's talked about in Proverbs. And here's what Solomon says. Eat honey, not too much, lest it make you sick. So here's the thing to know about honey. Every other food you eat today should have no added sugar. You should be eating lots of organic meat, lots of fruit, lots of vegetables, maybe a little bit of whole grains like rice, sweet potatoes, some healthy fats, avocados, extra virgin olive oil, coconut, walnuts. That should be the basis of your diet. But if you're going to add a sweetener in, honey is the best. A teaspoon up to a tablespoon.

21:52Most people do fine, especially if you're doing around when you're moving, walking, working out. But you don't want to do too much. If you're doing two, three, four big servings every single day of honey, it's going to be too much for most people. Now, listen, for athletes, if you're a triathlete or a professional athlete or you work out a lot, you can do honey around your workouts and actually do quite a bit. OK, but if you're very inactive, just use a little bit, a teaspoon at a time, two teaspoons at a time max if you're going to use honey and it will still be medicine. But remember this old saying, the dose determines the medicine or the poison, right?

22:28Honey, it's medicine. One teaspoon, two teaspoons. If you're very active, you can do a little bit more than that. But if you're not, you don't want to do more than that one to two teaspoons because if you do a lot more, it becomes poison like anything, too much of anything. Number six, honey has antiviral and antibacterial properties. In lab studies, Manuka honey is effective in helping kill dangerous pathogens like MRSA, E. coli, and even has antiviral properties. And Manuka's MGO compound enhances this effect. MGO, as I mentioned earlier, methylglyoxal disrupts cellular function of harmful microbes, making it harder for bacteria to spread and grow, which is part of the reason it works.

23:10Also, you know, a lot of people, so often today people will go and take these antibiotics and then it kills off the good bacteria in their gut. It weakens their immune system long term. When you use honey-based products, especially Manuka honey and propolis, those are so powerful. Like if you feel like you have a sore throat coming on, the only sweetener you should use at all is Manuka honey. You should also take high doses of propolis three times a day. You can also do lots of echinacea. You can do lots of thyme, like drink that as an herbal tea, drink mostly chicken, vegetable soup, get sunshine, all of those things.

23:48But Manuka honey can be part of that protocol for preventing strep from coming on to keep you from getting sicker. But those are some things you should think about. Number seven big benefit of honey is skin health and acne. Topical honey reduces inflammation, promotes healing, and hydrates the skin. honey masks can help with acne, eczema, and wound healing. One medical journal said this, first, honey prevents a prolonged inflammatory response by suppressing the production and propagation of inflammatory cells at the wound site. Second, it stimulates the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, allowing normal healing to occur and stimulating the proliferation of epithelial cells.

24:34So it actually both kills bad bacteria and helps nourish the area with the right level of moisture to help tissue regeneration and healing. So Manuka, if you know anyone with acne scarring, like one of the things I have my patients do is I will actually have them take Manuka honey and do a face mask with that at night and rinse it off. Or oftentimes if they of too much heat as well. I love doing a blend of Manuka honey with aloe vera gel. Okay. Um, that combination, and sometimes you can add silver to it. You can even add a little bit of essential oils like a lavender, or if the acne is really severe, a little bit of tea tree oil mixed in there.

25:13Uh, but it's really powerful using honey and aloe together and silver is sort of that, that anti acne. Uh, and here's the other big thing. It's the best thing to do on the skin topically because it also prevents scarring the most and helps heal scarring the most. So it's a great natural remedy. Now, obviously, acne, there's a lot of things going on internally as well. Stress will make it worse. Excess estrogen in a young girl. So having those girls eat and boys eat more steamed cruciferous vegetables, that's going to help detoxify the body. So more vegetables, more lean meat that's organic, more omega-3 fatty acids like fish oil, high doses of probiotics, more antioxidants from berries and pomegranates.

25:51that's really gonna help clear acne too, is the diet of the kids, keeping the stress moderate as well. But topically, nothing is better than Manuka honey. As a doctor and a dad, I'm always looking for simple natural habits to keep my family healthy. And one of my favorites is Manukora Manuka honey. And it's not just any honey. This is the real deal. It's raw, it's never processed. and the jar I use has an MGO rating of 850 plus, the highest I've ever seen. That means it's packed with unique compounds, antioxidants, and prebiotics that help support the gut, the immune system, and even give you a boost of natural energy.