A New Approach for Indexing Honey for Its Heath/Medicinal Benefits: Visualization of the Concept by Indexing Based on Antioxidant and Antibacterial Activities.

Mahmud Masalha,Basheer Abu-Farich,Saleh Abu-Lafi,Mouhammad Zeidan,Nael Issa,Mahmoud Rayan,Anwar Rayan

doi:10.3390/medicines5040135

Mahmud Masalha, Basheer Abu-Farich + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/medicines5040135

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Abstract

Background: The goals of the current study were to address a new concept termed a health benefits’ index (HBI) and to verify the type of correlation between the pricing of honey and its HBI/medicinal properties. Diverse types of honey from different origins and places were investigated for their antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. Methods: We have utilized a modified protocol of the DPPH assay for measuring free radical scavenging and the microdilution test for the determination of antibacterial/antifungal minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs). MICs were determined against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Candida albicans microorganisms. Employing a “combined benefits approach” enabled us to attach to each honey type a unique number of HBI that correlate with honey health and medicinal values. Results: The various types of honey demonstrated significant but variable antioxidant, antibacterial, and antifungal activities. Types of wildflower-labeled honey were found to have a wide range of HBI values and medicinal properties, probably due to their containing different nectar contents/phytochemicals. Moreover, an inconsiderable correlation was detected between the market prices of different types of honey and their HBIs. Conclusions: The proposed index of health benefits could be recalculated/updated following measurement of more and more medicinal properties, such as anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and anticancer activities. This index could be used as an effective tool for consumers of honey to evaluate the real value of the purchased product.

Highlights

Honey is a natural product that is produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers [1].It has nutritional, cosmetic, and therapeutic value [2,3], and it is considered one of the most important natural products that has been used by humankind since ancient times [4,5]
Much evidence indicates that honey can exert numerous health beneficial effects, including wound healing [8]; antioxidant [9]; anti-inflammatory [10,11], anticancer [12], antimicrobial [13], and antidiabetic [14,15]
All of the aforementioned microbial strains were purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), Manassas, VA, USA

Summary

Introduction

Honey is a natural product that is produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers [1]. It has nutritional, cosmetic, and therapeutic value [2,3], and it is considered one of the most important natural products that has been used by humankind since ancient times [4,5]. General magazines, newspapers, leaflets of natural products, and scientific journals publish a great amount of information on the utility of honey for controlling many human diseases and refer to a wide variety of mysterious properties [6,7], ranging from anti-aging to fertility. Types of wildflower-labeled honey were found to have a wide range of HBI values and medicinal properties, probably due to their containing different nectar contents/phytochemicals

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