Using natural honey for Tuberculosis treatment

Seeking a natural treatment for tuberculosis or a tuberculosis alternative medicine treatment? Well, this might just be it.
A new study on the benefits of bees and honey has revealed that bee products and especially honey has more benefits in tuberculosis treatment. The study conducted by doctors at Mulago hospital indicates that honey not only quickens the healing process but also suffocates the TB bacteria preventing it from spreading to other parts of the body.
This was revealed during a recent meeting between the Uganda National Apiculture Development Organisation (Tunado) and TB experts at Mulago hospital, where Tunado also donated honey and other bee products to TB patients.

According to Dr StaviaTuryahabwe, a researcher from the Centre for TB Control, TB patients who take honey as part of their daily diet stand higher chances of healing faster than those who only take anti-TB drugs.
Dr Turyahabwe said, “our hypothesis is that honey could be acted as a diet-mediated anti-tuberculosis prophylaxis and cure of patients. TB bacteria tend to first spread and infect the lungs of the individual and then move to the circulatory system to various other parts of the body. If one does not undergo timely tuberculosis treatment then the infection may spread to the kidney, spine and abdominal organs and can even be fatal. Left untreated, each person with active TB disease will infect on average between 10 to 15 people every year.”

Why honey?
“For a long time, human beings have used honey not only as food, but also for wound care and cough treatment. It is an organic, natural sugar alternative with no additives that is easy on the stomach, with good source of different essential compounds for the human body. We believe it has different medical advantages including relieving annoying coughs which are more common in TB patients,” said Dickson Biryomumaisho, Tunado executive director.

In 2007, the World Health Organisation urged Uganda to declare tuberculosis a national emergency and according to experts, this contagious bacteria infection of the respiratory system continues to be driven by the HIV epidemic with about 53 per cent of TB patients being HIV infected.
While several are treated, it is also true that large numbers of TB cases go undetected and untreated, fuelling new cases and deaths. The frightening growth of drug-resistant strains of TB that is difficult to treat, add to the urgency of combating this disease in Uganda.

Advancement
The good news, however, is that globally over the last two decades there has been tremendous progress in TB control but for the case of Uganda there is significant increase in drug resistant TB. Drug-resistant TB is caused by inconsistent or partial treatment, when patients do not take all their medicines regularly for the required period because they start to feel better, because doctors and health workers prescribe the wrong treatment regimens, or because the drug supply is unreliable.
“Nowadays, it has to be said that drug-resistant TB is more common in Uganda. A particularly dangerous form of drug-resistant TB is multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), which is defined as the disease caused by TB bacilli resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, is threatening TB control efforts in Uganda,” Dr Turyahabwe explains.

Statistics
According to Dr Susan Adukan, figures show about 13 per cent of all TB patients become resistant to first line drugs provided and about 60 per cent of these are in elderly stage.
However, preliminary results of an ongoing research indicate that taking of honey while on TB drugs is very beneficial and in a way quickens the healing process.

Dr Adukan said, “research on the effects of honey on tuberculosis was performed using a variety of search tools and they were all positive. While honey could be used for preventing the disease and cure the patient we are not telling patients to abandon their medicine for honey but it will be better if they carried it along. It must be pure honey.”
She continued, “various studies indicate that the pH of honey is about 3.5 which is not suitable for the growth of most bacteria, perhaps for tuberculosis.”
Apart from TB treatment, Biryomumaisho adds, “two properties make honey different from antibiotics. It does not seem to induce resistance and it is active against a wide variety of micro-organisms. It also has a higher concentration of sugars and specific chemicals hence a number of laboratory tests and clinical studies have found it to be effective on wound healing, in fact four times more potent than any sugar solution.”

Components
Evidential literature suggests that honey has different sugars including glucose, fructose maltose, turanose sucrose, erlose, and different enzymes such as lipase, amylase diastase, invertase, catalase, phosphatase,, inhibin, polyphenol oxidase, inulaseglycogenase, and different types of amino acids while pollens carry phosphotides plus another 6,500 types of flavonoids and minerals including molybdenum, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, iron, zinc, magnesium, selenium, copper, manganese chloride, sulfur, and a number of vitamins including Thiamine (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin Pyridoxine Β6, Tsiankobalamin Β12 Folic acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin AΈ Vitamin DΈ Vitamin EΈ Vitamin K, Vitamin H (biotin), and organic acids including gluconic acid, malic acid, lactic acid, oxalic acid, maleic acid, citric acid, carboxylic acid, and other different compounds. Honey has decontamination property too.

Expert take
Based on reports from World Health Organisation, the number of MDR-TB and XDR-TB is increasing daily. Possibly a few studies also are supporting this. Honey has also been applied for inhibition of H. pylori and many Gram-negative and Gram-positive in viroid many diseases perhaps Cancer, respiratory diseases, and obstructive jaundice in Animal Model too. Honey could be used for preventing the disease and cure the patient, especially those with (Multidrug Resistant TB) MDR or (Extensive Drug Resistant TB)XDR-TB successfully too.