For centuries honey has been used as a traditional remedy to soothe sore throats and ease suffering from coughs and colds. Now it gets the green light from scientists who say it may be better than antibiotics — and comes with none of the side-effects — when it comes to treating a range of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs).
With existing evidence that honey helps childhood coughs and colds — and with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and Public Health England already advising that adults and children over the age of five take a couple of spoonfuls of honey in place of antibiotics to ease an acute cough — the latest findings suggest honey should be recommended as an alternative to medication for adults with coughs, sore throats and other URTI symptoms.
Reporting in the BMJ Evidence Based Medicine journal, researchers at the Oxford University Medical School said that a spoonful of honey might be a better option when doctors want to provide a safe treatment. “Honey is a frequently used lay remedy that is well known to patients,” the team wrote. “It is also cheap, easy to access and has limited harms. When clinicians wish to prescribe for URTI, we would recommend honey as an alternative to antibiotics.” It’s sweet news for honey lovers, but honey is not a cure-all. Here’s what it can (and can’t) do for your health:
Don’t expect it to help your hay fever
A spoonful of local honey containing microscopic amounts of local pollen is believed by many to provide some protection against hay fever, but that is something of a myth. One double blind study at the University of Connecticut compared locally produced honey with mass-produced, filtered honey and honey-flavoured corn syrup to see if there was any difference between the three in reducing hay fever symptoms. Neither of the honey varieties reduced symptoms any more effectively than the corn syrup. “Grass pollen is a common allergen that aggravates hay fever in some people, but honey is produced from flower pollen so won’t have an effect,” says Holly Shaw, a nurse adviser at Allergy UK. “There’s no scientific evidence that honey will help your hay fever.”
Try it to power your workouts
Honey is a mix of 80 per cent sugars, 18 per cent water and 2 per cent mineral, vitamin, pollen and proteins; a blend that makes it the perfect natural alternative to commercial and highly processed energy gels. A study published in Strength and Conditioning Journal by researchers at the University of Memphis Exercise and Sport Nutrition Laboratory showed honey “can improve performance by enhancing carbohydrate availability and work output”. In trials on cyclists (which were funded by the National Honey Board in the US), the scientists found that taking 15g of honey — about a tablespoon — with 250ml of water before a workout and every 10 miles of hard cycling matched the same amount of a sports gel for performance-boosting benefits. Athletes were able to cycle “significantly faster” when consuming the honey compared with a placebo.
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It’s no better than sugar for your waistline
Honey tastes sweeter than sugar so you might use less, but even so don’t overdo it. “Regardless of the reputed health benefits of honey, it is still classified nutritionally as a ‘free’ sugar — the type that we should be cutting down for the sake of our teeth and waistlines,” says Helen Bond, a dietician and spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association (BDA). “An 8g [level] teaspoon of honey supplies 26 kcals and 6.4g sugar — that’s 21 per cent of our daily free sugar allowance. A heaped teaspoon [17g] of honey supplies 56 kcals — 14g sugar, which is half of the upper daily limit.” And although it has a lower glycaemic index than sugar — meaning it won’t send your blood sugar soaring quite as sharply — “it does nevertheless still raise blood sugar”, says the dietician Clare Thornton-Wood, another BDA spokeswoman. “As with any form of sugar, the advice is don’t overdo it.”
All honey has antimicrobial properties . . .
Honey’s antibacterial properties are the result of bees depositing hydrogen peroxide as they synthesise flower pollen, and lab studies have shown that, as a consequence, honey can kill dozens of strains of bacteria. Some varieties, including manuka honey from New Zealand and tualang honey from Malaysia, are more potent than others. “Manuka honey is labelled with a Unique Manuka Factor that defines it from other honey and relates to its methylglyoxal [MGO] content, which has antibacterial properties,” Thornton-Wood says. “The higher the number, the better the antibacterial properties, not only when eating manuka, but also when putting it on wounds. However, most honey contains some antibacterial strength.”
. . . but some manuka might be a waste of money
It can cost up to £100 a jar, but manuka honey may not always live up to its billing as a bug-fighter, especially if it has been exposed to heat or left sitting around for too long in storage. In research last year by Professor Merilyn Manley-Harris, a chemist at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, jars of manuka honey shipped around the world were found to have lower levels of MGO, suggesting its antibacterial levels were reduced. “If you’re buying honey that has been shipped, buy one which has also been tested when it arrives,” Manley-Harris wrote.
Some people should never eat honey
As natural as it is, honey is not safe for everyone to eat. “It’s not uncommon for honey to cause digestive symptoms,” Thornton-Wood says. “It contains fructose, a sugar that people with IBS cannot tolerate in any quantity.” Likewise it should never be given to children under the age of one. “There are bacterial spores present in honey that can cause botulism in babies, so the Department of Health guidance is not to give it to infants,” Thornton-Wood says.
It can soothe a child’s night cough
A Cochrane Review in 2018 analysed the results of six trials involving 899 children aged 12 months to 18 years (conducted in Iran, Israel, the US, Brazil and Kenya) and concluded that “honey probably reduces cough symptoms more than a placebo and salbutamol [a drug that opens lung airways] when given for up to three days”. The report found honey offered similar benefits to dextromethorphan (an ingredient in over-the-counter cough remedies) and also to be better than diphenhydramine (an antihistamine) at relieving and reducing night-time coughs. Ron Eccles, emeritus professor in the school of biosciences at Cardiff University, recommends a warm honey and lemon drink for adults. “The liquid encourages mucus secretion to soothe and the honey lubricates your throat,” he says.
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It won’t do much for gut health
Honey contains oligosaccharides, a form of carbohydrate that has a prebiotic effect and is good for gut health. But the amounts are too small to make much of a difference, says Dr Megan Rossi, a gut health expert and research fellow at King’s College London. “It is true that honey does contain more gut-friendly micronutrients and plant-chemicals such as flavonoids than table sugar,” she says. “However, in a standard serve the difference is tiny and if you’re after a micronutrient and flavonoid boost to your diet you are better off eating a piece of fruit to sweeten your food, which would deliver up to 1,000 per cent more of these beneficial nutrients.”
Mine’s homemade: A-list beekeepers
Michelle Obama
While serving as first lady, Michelle Obama installed the White House’s first beehive in 2009. About 35,000 bees produced honey, which Obama said tasted “like sunshine”. As well as being the star ingredient in the White House home-brewed beer, Obama used it instead of sugar in her tea.
David Beckham
He built a beehive in the garden of his £6 million Cotswolds home in June. A recent video posted by his wife, Victoria, features the former footballer in his protective beekeeping suit holding up a hive frame. “We’ll be very happy when we’ve got our own honey,” he said.
James Middleton
Since receiving a beehive nine years ago as a birthday present from his sister the Duchess of Cambridge and other family members, James Middleton hasn’t looked back. “On a warm summer’s day there are few places on earth I’d rather be than tending my bees,” he has said. He keeps almost half a million bees in eight hives at his parents’ home, Bucklebury Manor in Berkshire.
Scarlett Johansson
The A-list actress took up beekeeping in 2009 when Samuel L Jackson gave her a beehive as a wedding present.
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Leonardo DiCaprio
Introduced to the hobby by his stepfather in 2016, Leonardo DiCaprio soon found beekeeping to be the ultimate stress reliever, especially in the lead-up to awards season. He has a few hives in his garden in Los Angeles.
Elisabeth Perlman
