How Honey Can Boost Your Health
By Genevieve Smith
Honey has a long medicinal history. The Egyptians, Grecians, and even WWI medical teams harnessed the power of honey for health and healing. A natural sweetener, it is a medicine that goes down easily. However, not only is it good for ingestion, but it also can serve up a some seriously awesome skin benefits. Let’s take a look at honey’s multifaceted properties.
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Honey helps ward off cancer and disease - Flavonoids in honey have the power of antioxidants to fight free radicals, protecting you from their doom and destruction!
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It protects your digestive system - Research finds that honey may help treat ulcers and bacterial gastroenteritis.
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It’s antifungal and antibacterial - Those crafty little bees add an enzyme that whips up hydrogen peroxide, making all honey antibacterial. Thus its long shelf life.
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It helps you slay at the gym - Really, honey is an incredible source of energy ready and waiting on the sidelines to boost any athletic performance. Studies find it has a knack for maintaining glycogen levels, and is better at reducing your recovery time than other sweeteners. Ancient Olympians ate honey to get an edge on the competition, and apparently they knew what’s up.
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Honey soothes your cough - A study of 110 kids discovered a single dose of buckwheat honey to match the effectiveness of dextromethorphan in relieving nighttime cough and promoting sleep.
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It keeps your blood sugar steady - Honey’s balance of glucose and fructose outshines the competition in regulating your blood sugar levels. Refined sugar and artificial sweeteners can just step out of the game, because they pale in comparison.
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It heals your skin - Apply honey to wounds and burns for benefits as effective as silver sulfadiazine. Antibacterial properties combined with simple sugars dry out the wound and protect from infection. It's a pretty sweet deal.
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It’s probiotic - Different kinds of honey contain different strains of bacteria, maxing out at around 10 different friendly bacterial species!
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Honey competes with your beauty ingredients - It brings the benefits of being both antibacterial and moisturizing together for a natural super-ingredient for your skin. Mix into face and body masks for a clear and soft complexion.
Honey is an ancient ingredient harnessed by humanity in millennia past. Its natural antibacterial properties make it a great alternative to medicines and synthetic beauty ingredients. Unlike artificial sweeteners, honey is beneficial to your health, and it comes in a variety of types to explore. From alfalfa to buckwheat, manuka to wildflower, there’s a spectrum of honey types to test out. Drink up!
To learn more about your health and wellness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic.