A study conducted on 45 patients in AIIMS and Jai Prakash Narayan AIIMS Trauma Centre showed that honey is more effective than medicines like Betadine in healing patients’ wounds.
The honey was treated of impurities before application on the wounds. Doctors at the hospital have been noticing positive results after applying honey on patients’ wounds for the last two years.
A team was formed by the AIIMS wound care clinic under Prof essor Anurag Srivastava of the department of surgery to conduct this study.
Study published
The study was published in a recent issue of Indian Journal of Surgery. Patients with wounds which were six weeks old or older, were divided into two groups. Honey was used for healing in the first group with 23 patients, while 22 of the second group were given povidone iodine, commonly known as Betadine.
In the first group, one person could not be followed up, while in the second, two patients opted out of the study. Finally the study was conducted on 42 patients.
In the six-week long study, honey that was used was brought from beehive in neem trees. Impurities were removed by treating the honey with gamma rays.
Dr Manish Singhal of the Trauma Centre said patients were bandaged with honey and betadine every alternate days.
Fast recovery
“We were surprised to see after two weeks that those who were treated with honey were showing faster recovery,” he said.
He said by the end of the study, it was found that the effect of honey was four times better than the other medicine.
The hospital is planning to conduct the study at a larger level. Its ethics committee has given the approval.
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