Protein from honey melipone honey would be more potent than antibiotics

It has just been discovered that protein from honey from bees without a sting, have a greater capacity to destroy bacterial colonies than common antibiotics. The research was carried out by a group of researchers from the National University of Costa Rica (UNA) and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Summary: At Cortijuelo de San Benito in Las Rozas de Madrid and in our online shop we offer the largest variety of Spanish and European honeys. Among them, we have: acacia, eucalyptus, lavender, manuka, heather honey, lime, rosemary, eucalyptus and lavender. In the near future we would also like to offer you honeys from the melipona bee.

Related articles: Where to buy quality raw honey?

1. Ineffectiveness of antibiotics

According to Gabriel Zamora, coordinator of the Microbiology and Chemistry Programme at the Centro de Investigaciones Apícolas Tropicales de La Universidad Nacional (CInat-Una) in Costa Rica, and the rest of the research group came to the following discovery after several years of tedious work. They discovered that the bacteria did not consume the antibiotics they were given. Instead, they developed a strategy of protection and isolation against the antibiotics by developing a biofilm.

This structure, the biofilm, which they create, consists of small communities. Here, bacteria and other microorganisms communicate, feed, reproduce and die in isolation from the environment in which they live.

According to Zamora, bacteria build a fortress with different levels, biofilms. Furthermore, some bacteria attach themselves to it, others are suspended within the same biofilm, and others leave the fortress, creating new biofilms. This explains why antibiotics only work if the bacteria behave in the same way. However, the antibiotic stops working properly when each community is different.

As the researchers tell us, 60 to 80 percent of infections are due to biofilms. And once they are formed, they are difficult to kill.

Therefore, if a wound becomes infected from a biofilm, the bacteria spread more easily throughout the victim’s body. In addition, in the worst-case scenario, causing their demise.

There are currently few drugs that inhibit the development of biofilms and those already created are very difficult to remove.

2. The study of the Cinat-Una

This was the aim of the Cinat-Una study in conjunction with the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, as they were aware of the superb antioxidant properties and powerful regenerative capacity of raw honey from stingless bees in tissues that had suffered burns and wounds.

This research focused on determining why honey is so effective against Staphylococcus aureus. Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium that frequently infects wounds and burns.

Researcher Zamora has been studying this subject for more than ten years, which he also used as his doctoral thesis, and discovered the following. Raw honey from stingless bees contains two proteins that have never been found before. This protein also has the dual ability to inhibit Staphylococcus aureus biofilms and to kill them.

To carry out this research they used different stingless bee honeys and used dialysis, chromotographic and elestrophoresis techniques.

3. Combination of protein from honey  with antibiotics

They concluded that if these proteins of melipone honey are combined with traditional antibiotics, they recover their destructive power, kill bacteria and inhibit the formation of new biofilms.

In addition, these research groups show how little is known about this meliponic bee and its raw honey. In addition, with this new discovery they want to call the attention of the government of Costa Rica and other Central American countries to promote the production and marketing of raw honey from the bee without a hole, the melipona.

Meliponic, melliferous and wild bees are under great pressure and their survival is at risk. The disappearance of bees would lead to the disappearance of raw honey, royal jelly, propolis, beeswax and bee venom, products with enormous benefits known and yet to be discovered, as new properties are still being researched and discovered. This disappearance of species, both plant and animal, has dire consequences for our quality of life and survival, and the real consequences would be too late.

Therefore, we must all defend and preserve nature, and even in small quantities, we must act for the good of all.

Source:

The newspaper La Nación de Costa Rica. Melipona protein from honey from melipone bee more potent than antibiotics. 6 de abril del 2017. http://www.nacion.com/