MANUKA HONEY FOR ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE

Antibiotic resistance? Blame the food industry! If you’ve ever been diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant infection you might have pointed to doctors indiscriminately prescribing antibiotics. Sure, they must take some responsibility, but the greater part of the problem rests with the food industry. There, intensively farmed animals and birds are given routine, low doses of antibiotics, which are the surest way to allow organisms to mutate to a resistant form and then to thrive. 

Interestingly, those antibiotics aren’t used to treat infection, but are a cheap way to make livestock grow faster. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, in the US about 13.5 million kg of antibiotics are used annually in food production, that's about 80 percent of total antibiotic sales in the country. Human consumption accounts for about 2.7 million kg, but it’s the humans who are bearing the greater burden. Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), is now responsible for more than 94,000 infections and 18,000 deaths in the US each year. In Australia, just as in the US the amount of antibiotics used in animals far exceeds that used in humans (500,000 kg compared to 300,000 kg). Not surprisingly, Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) and Multi Resistant Organisms (MROs) are a huge problem in Australia with an estimated 200,000 HAIs contributing to 7,000 deaths annually. 

But here’s the good news if you worry about or are affected by infection with one of these resistant organisms. Manuka Honey Kills MRSA and other ‘superbugs’. Australian researchers found that raw Manuka Honey killed every bacteria or pathogen it was tested on. The honey can be applied topically to help fight against infections of the skin, cuts and insect bites, or taken internally. This exciting finding was published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (June 2009 edition), and holds particular importance when antibiotic resistance is so prevalent.

Of course only genuine Manuka Honey exhibits unique properties - be sure of integrity when you choose Manuka Honey from IWI BRANDS.