Abstract
Honey is a natural substance formed primarily of carbohydrates (~80%) which also contains a number of other compounds purported to confer health benefits when consumed. Due to its carbohydrate composition (low glycaemic index, mostly fructose and glucose), honey may theoretically exert positive effects when consumed before, during or after exercise. This review therefore appraised research examining the effects of honey consumption in combination with exercise in humans. Online database (PubMed, MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus) searches were performed, yielding 273 results. Following duplicate removal and application of exclusion criteria, nine articles were reviewed. Large methodological differences existed in terms of exercise stimulus, population, and the nutritional interventions examined. All nine studies reported biochemical variables, with four examining the effects of honey on exercise performance, whilst five described perceptual responses. Acute supplementation around a single exercise session appeared to elicit similar performance, perceptual, and immunological responses compared with other carbohydrate sources, although some performance benefit has been observed relative to carbohydrate-free comparators. When consumed over a number of weeks, honey may dampen immunological perturbations arising from exercise and possibly improve markers of bone formation. More well-controlled research is required to better understand the role for honey in a food-first approach to exercise nutrition.
Highlights
Honey is defined by European Communities legislation as “the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature” and is categorised primarily according to origin and mode of production or presentation [1]
A total of 273 records were identified through the original search strategy
Considerable methodological variation existed with regards to the patterns and dosages of honey supplementation, with some studies feeding honey either before, during or after a single exercise session, and others investigating the effects of honey supplementation over several weeks
Summary
Honey is defined by European Communities legislation as “the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature” and is categorised primarily according to origin and mode of production or presentation [1]. A popular foodstuff, honey is comprised of ~80% carbohydrate, and ~19% water [2], and typically contains a wide variety of other components such as organic acids, proteins, amino acids, minerals, polyphenols, vitamins, aroma compounds, and approximately 500 enzymes [2,3]. This diverse profile has seen honey being used for a variety of different health and medicinal purposes [2,3,4,5,6,7]. There exists over 320 different varieties of honey, and the composition of this substance can vary substantially depending upon the variety of plant from which nectar is derived, in addition to the environmental conditions within which the plants grow [2,3,6,9,10]
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