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Traditional healers use honey to support wound healing and several modern wound care products contain honey, which is a broad-spectrum bactericide, promotes debridement, reduces inflammation, activates immune cells and attenuates malodour.

Now new research in The Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan suggests that a honey-impregnated dressing hastens healing of diabetic foot ulcers. The study, which used gamma-irradiated honey with confirmed antibacterial activity, enrolled patients with Wagner’s grade 1 and 2 ulcers.

Researchers treated 179 patients with honey-impregnated dressings and 169 with saline dressings and followed the patients for up to 120 days. Seventy-six per cent of wounds treated with the honey-impregnated dressing healed completely compared with 57 per cent of those treated with saline dressings.

The wounds treated with the honey-impregnated dressing also healed more rapidly – medians of 18 and 29 days respectively. Further large, double-blind, randomised controlled studies need to confirm these findings.

^{(Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan 2015; 25:721-725)}

Role for honey?