How Honey Could Cure Your Allergies
There have been no peer-reviewed scientific studies that have
conclusively proven whether honey actually reduces allergies. Almost all
evidence regarding the immunizing effects of eating honey is anecdotal.
But these reports have proven persuasive enough for some people to try
to fight their seasonal allergies by eating honey every day.
Without
scientific inquiry, we're left with only theories about how honey could
reduce allergies. The prevailing theory is that it works like a
vaccination. Vaccines introduce dummy versions of a particular virus or germ into the body and effectively trick it into believing it's been invaded, triggering an immune system response [source: UNICEF].
This produces antibodies designated to fight off the foreign invaders.
When the body is actually exposed to the harmful germ or virus, the
antibodies are ready for them.
The idea behind eating honey is kind of like gradually vaccinating the body against allergens, a process called immunotherapy.
Honey contains a variety of the same pollen spores that give allergy
sufferers so much trouble when flowers and grasses are in bloom.
Introducing these spores into the body in small amounts by eating honey
should make the body accustomed to their presence and decrease the
chance an immune system response like the release of histamine will
occur [source: AAFP].
Since the concentration of pollen spores found in honey is low --
compared to, say, sniffing a flower directly -- then the production of
antibodies shouldn't trigger symptoms similar to an allergic reaction.
Ideally, the honey-eater won't have any reaction at all.
As
innocuous as honey seems, it can actually pose health risks in some
cases. Honey proponents warn that there is a potential for an allergic
reaction to it. And since honey can contain bacteria that can cause infant botulism,
health officials warn that children under 12 months of age whose immune
systems haven't fully developed shouldn't eat honey at all [source: Mayo Clinic].
If a regimen is undertaken, however, local honey is generally accepted as the best variety to use. Local honey
is produced by bees usually within a few miles of where the person
eating the honey lives. There's no real rule of thumb on how local the
honey has to be, but proponents suggest the closer, the better [source: Ogren].
This proximity increases the chances that the varieties of flowering
plants and grasses giving the allergy sufferer trouble are the same
kinds the bees are including in the honey they produce. After all, it
wouldn't help much if you ate honey with spores from a type of grass
that grows in Michigan if you suffer from allergies in Georgia.
At
least one informal (unfunded) study on allergies and honey conducted by
students at Xavier University in New Orleans produced positive results.
Researchers divided participants into three groups: seasonal allergy
sufferers, year-round allergy sufferers and non-allergy sufferers. These
groups were further divided into three subgroups with some people
taking two teaspoons of local honey per day, others taking the same
amount of non-local honey each day and the final subgroup not taking
honey at all. The Xavier students found that after six weeks, allergy
sufferers from both categories suffered fewer symptoms and that the
group taking local honey reported the most improvement [source: Cochran].
The
study was never published, but the anecdotal evidence in favor of honey
as an allergy reliever continues: Several of the study participants
asked if they could keep the remaining honey after the experiment was
concluded.
