Experts believe that treating wounds with honey has tremendous potential for the approximately 200 million people in the world with diabetes, 15 percent of whom will develop an ulcer, usually because of impaired sensation in their feet.

Every 30 seconds someone somewhere in the world undergoes amputation for a diabetic foot ulcer. Diabetic Catrina Hurlburt thought she would soon become one of them.

The sore on Catrina's leg simply wouldn't heal and it soon developed into a troublesome open sore that, despite the use of oral antibiotics, continued to fester for nearly eight months. Eventually, Hurlburt's doctor Jennifer Eddy, suggested she try putting honey on the wound. Within a matter of months, the sore had healed completely.

"It's a lot better than having to put oral antibiotics into your system," said Hurlburt, who can’t use topical antibiotics because of allergies.

Eddy first successfully used honey therapy a few years ago with a patient who was facing amputation after all medical options had been exhausted.
"Patients like Catrina Hurlburt are a great example of the potential health care savings," explains Eddy, a medical professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in the US.

She says that diabetics often have poor circulation and a decreased ability to fight infection and diabetic ulcers treated with long courses of systemic antibiotics can become resistant to the treatment.

But since honey fights bacteria in numerous ways, it is immune to resistance. Honey's acidic pH, low water content (which dehydrates bacteria), and the hydrogen peroxide secreted by its naturally-occurring enzymes make it ideal for combating organisms that have developed resistance to standard antibiotics.

Eddy says that the World Health Organization have identified bacterial resistance as one of the most important medical problems of our day.

“Unfortunately, diabetic ulcers are very complicated, and honey would only be part of the solution," she concludes.