Dec 26, 2007 4:05 pm US/Eastern
Honey Makes Comeback As Nature's Medicinal Remedy
TRENTON (AP) ―
Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic -- honey -- is making a comeback.
More than 4,000 years after Egyptians began applying honey to wounds, a New Jersey firm, Derma Sciences, began selling the first honey-based dressing this fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Called Medihoney, it is made from a highly absorbent seaweed-based material, saturated with manuka honey, a particularly potent type that experts say kills germs and speeds healing.
Derma Sciences now sells two Medihoney dressings in North and South America and hopes to have its dressings in U.S. drug stores in the next six months.
The honey dressings have been popular for more than a decade in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
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