Could honey ‘bee’ the golden cure for seasonal allergies?
When 5-year-old Ruby Richardson was recommended prescriptionstrength antihistamines for her severe seasonal allergies, mum Alisha Richardson knew she needed to find another option.
‘‘I didn’t like giving it to her because it’s like a drug,’’ she said.
‘‘Parents would give it to their kids at night to help them sleep. So it wasn’t ideal in my eyes.’’
Born with severe allergies and seasonal asthma, Richardson said her daughter was ‘‘in and out of the doctors’’ and the prescribed medicine was ‘‘quite potent’’ and would make Ruby drowsy.
Richardson set out to research other options and soon read that honey could be an alternative ‘‘medicine’’. Three months ago she began feeding it by the spoonful to her sniffling child.
‘‘At first it wasn’t working but that’s because I was getting the brand honey you put on toast,’’ Richardson said.
But then she swapped to UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) 16+ Manuka honey, which is regarded as a ‘‘superior high grade’’, and said she saw immediate effects.
‘‘I’d give her one teaspoon in the morning and one teaspoon before bed and within three days, she came right.’’
The theory behind the unscientifically proven method is that honey pulled from local hives would include pollens in the air that cause some people to get hay fever or other allergy symptoms.
By consuming raw honey or high grade honey, more of these pollens were present and, when consumed, allowed the body to produce antibodies to help fight off the sinus-blocking pathogens.
Dr Shaun Holt, who holds pharmacy and medicine degrees and lectures at Victoria University in Wellington, has long believed in the power of honey.
He co-founded Wellington’s HoneyLab, which performs extensive research on bees and develops medical products from the insect. He has taken on the principal investigator role in more than 50 clinical trials. While Holt has yet to explore honey’s potential affect on seasonal allergies and asthma, he said it’s a subject he’s had a keen eye on for ‘‘a while now’’.
‘‘It makes sense. In theory it should help,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s similar to immunisation therapy. Allergy experts will give you a pollen injection but it’s just expensive.’’
Holt said by consuming the bee byproduct, people were ‘‘basically building an immunity’’ by exposing the body to pollens without inhaling it and suffering symptoms.
And if patients were to visit him in regards to seasonal allergies, Holt said he would tell them to ‘‘give it a go’’. Taranaki honey producer Fiona Black said hordes of customers visited her Bees R Us shop on Devon St West in New Plymouth asking for honey specifically for allergy relief.
‘‘Raw honey is the best because it doesn’t get heated and you don’t lose all the good stuff,’’ she said.
Black said beekeepers knew where their bees were collecting and could point people in the right direction when they came in with itchy eyes and a stuffed nose.
Someone living along the coast might get a clover honey versus someone else who may need a bush honey, Black said.
Nicola Swanson, who tutors at the Naturopathic College of New Zealand in New Plymouth, and is a practising naturopath and medical herbalist, sees honey as a potential alternative to ease hay fever and seasonal asthma symptoms.
She suggested placing one teaspoon in the mouth and treating ‘‘it like a lolly’’ to alleviate a scratchy throat.
‘‘Or you can stir some in camomile tea with a little lemon, which gives you a bit of vitamin C and is great for digestive health.’’
Swanson said it was best to be assessed before self treating as symptoms might not be from allergies but an underlying food intolerance.