Natural honey 'heals burns faster'

Natural honey can heal burns more quickly than some standard dressing treatments, a study has shown.

Scientists pooled together data from 19 trials involving more than 2,500 patients with a range of different wounds.

They found that honey was better at reducing the time it takes to recover from mild to moderate burns than some widely used gauze and film dressings.

"We're treating these results with caution, but it looks like honey can help speed up healing in some burns," said chief researcher Dr Andrew Jull, from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Honey has been used to treat wounds since ancient times. How it works is unclear, but it appears to fight infection and help the body remove dead tissue.

Although honey benefited burns, the researchers could find no reliable evidence that it aided recovery from grazes, lacerations, surgical wounds or leg ulcers.

Dr Jull said: "Health services should invest in treatments that have been shown to work. But we will keep monitoring new research to try and establish the effect of honey."

The findings were published by the Cochrane Library, which provides systematic reviews of research studies.

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