Saudi Honey: A Promising Therapeutic Agent for Treating Wound Infections

Abstract

Treatment of wounds, especially chronic ones, is a major challenge in healthcare, with serious clinical and economic burdens. Multiple treatment approaches, including the usage of silver and iodine, have dramatically improved wound healing and reduced the incidence of infection. However, once infected by drug-resistant bacteria, treatment of wounds becomes a serious complication, with limited availability of effective antibiotic drugs, leading to high morbidity and mortality. Therefore, alternative therapeutic agents are required to address this gap in wound management. The introduction of manuka honey as a therapeutic agent against infected wounds was the result of extensive research about its activity against both planktonic and biofilm bacterial growth. Likewise, several types of Saudi honey (e.g., Sidr and Talh) showed promising in vitro and in vivo antimicrobial activity against wound pathogens. This short review summarizes literature that investigated the activity of common types of Saudi honey in relation to wound infections and explores their clinical utility.

The Antimicrobial Effects of Saudi Sumra Honey against Drug Resistant Pathogens: Phytochemical Analysis, Antibiofilm, Anti-Quorum Sensing, and Antioxidant Activities

“…There is a growing demand to find alternative agents/approaches to replace antibiotics due to the global threat of AMR, which continues to increase despite the limited number of effective antibiotics targeting MDR bacteria [ 1 ]. Consequently, a high demand towards various natural products (NPs) presented with antibacterial activity and mode of action unlike conventional drugs, including honey, was widely observed [ 11 , 18 ]. Honey has been revered and valued as one of nature’s greatest gifts.…”

“…Several studies have shown that honey can be used to treat wounds, diabetes mellitus, cancer, and cardiovascular, neurological, and gastrointestinal diseases. The antibacterial properties of honey have been studied over the years, and many studies have found that natural honey has some broad-spectrum antibacterial activity towards drug resistant pathogenic bacteria [ 11 ]. Therefore, honey has been considered as a potential bioactive natural product that showed promising activity against pathogenic bacteria to treat a variety of bacterial infections [ 20 ].…”

“…Antibiotic alternative approaches would include bacteriophages (viruses that lyse bacteria) [ 9 ], antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) [ 10 ], or natural products, such as plant extract, essential oils, and honey [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Different types of natural honey have been reported for their antimicrobial activity against a broad range of bacteria and, thus, they can be used to treat bacterial infections caused by MDR bacteria.…”

“…Different types of natural honey have been reported for their antimicrobial activity against a broad range of bacteria and, thus, they can be used to treat bacterial infections caused by MDR bacteria. The exact mechanism of natural honey’s antimicrobial action is still unclear/inconclusive, but it is widely believed that there are multiple underlying mechanisms attributed to its antimicrobial activity [ 11 ]. Nevertheless, honey is expected to eradicate bacteria by one or more of the following modes of action: disrupting/damaging bacterial cell membrane, inhibiting bacterial virulence factors, or preventing bacterial adhesion to host cells [ 14 , 15 ].…”

Bacterial Infections among Patients with Chronic Diseases at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Saudi Arabia

“…P. aeruginosa is not only limited to a local infection in patients with burns (wound infection), but it can disseminate via the bloodstream leading to bacteremia, sepsis, and death [ 24 ]. Wounds and burns are moist environments that are suitable for the establishment and propagation of P. aeruginosa [ 53 ]. Infections caused by P. aeruginosa are usually treated by piperacillin-tazobactam due to the resistance patterns of this bacterium [ 54 ].…”