How do you nourish your body in a way that you will be digestively healthy?
What we know is that digestion is reliant on the health of our gut.
Our gut is very complex.
It contains many different bacterias, acids, enzymes, and also carries out many functions.
In fact, according to UCLA, more than 70% of our immune system is populated in our digestive system.
How well we digest food is going to depend on how healthy our gut is.
So the real question is, can Manuka Honey help make our gut healthier?
The answer is an overwhelming yes!
Manuka honey can be good for diarrhea, constipation, ulcers, bloating, gas, and many other stomach problems.
Let’s look at some of the ways it can do this:
Keeping gut bacteria healthy
Manuka honey functions as both a prebiotic and probiotic.
This study found that:
A beneficial synergistic effect of Manuka honey (UMF 20+) in improving the growth of probiotics (Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, and Bifidobacterium lactis) and inhibiting the pathogens (Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Staphylococcus aureus) was demonstrated.
This study also found that “Manuka honey was particularly effective at influencing gut bacteria.”
Prebiotics are important because they provide food for the bacteria in your gut to flourish. When your gut bacteria is healthy, your gut is able to better break down food and extract nutrients.
Eating one to two scoops per day of Manuka honey is a great way to give your gut a prebiotic and probiotic boost.
Killing harmful gut bacteria
Studies have shown the Manuka honey is effective at killing many of the bacteria that causes distress in our gut.
Some of these are:
- H Pylori which causes stomach ulcers
- E Coli and Salmonella which cause diarrhea and food poisoning
- C Diff which causes intestinal infections and pain
Manuka honey has been well studied on its effectiveness at managing bacterial infections.
The great thing about Manuka honey is that it’s a completely natural food source which is antibacterial due to its high methylglyoxal (MGO) content.
This means it is very difficult for these bacteria to form any kind of resistance to Manuka Honey, unlike how they might do with synthetic antibiotics.
This is why Manuka Honey is often recommended as a treatment for things like colitis, h pylori, constipation and IBS.
Eating Manuka honey regularly can help regulate the bacteria in your gut, and clear the bad bacteria so your good gut flora has a chance to repopulate and flourish.
Reduces gut inflammation
We already know from various studies that manuka honey is a great anti-inflammatory.
This 2021 study claimed targeted tissues benefit from the honey’s pharmacological and preventive actions which modulate the inflammatory cytokines functions and ultimately reduce the severity of chronic inflammatory diseases.
This 2019 study was focused on manuka honey and wound healing, and found Manuka honey has an anti-inflammatory effect on neutrophils, reducing their recruitment to the wound site, their superoxide production, and their intracellular inflammatory signalling.
Manuka honey’s effect on providing relief for sufferers of things like colitis and IBS is largely due to its ability to bring down inflammation.
This is not news to many people. Honey has been used as an agent for treating inflammation for centuries.
Manuka honey is great because it contains specific anti-inflammatory agents that help magnify this, its MGO content for especially.
Bringing down inflammation in the gut is certain to help improve your digestion.
How to use manuka honey to aid digestion?
The best way to get the full benefits of Manuka honey is to eat it straight and unadulterated.
This means you simply take a spoon and eat a few mouthfuls each day straight from the jar!
Of course, you can also enjoy it in your tea or on toast or waffles or how you might enjoy other honey.
However, we believe in any situation, it is best to consume it unheated.
Too much heat can compromise some of the natural enzymes and properties of Manuka Honey.
If you just want to maintain general health and wellbeing, we suggest using any Manuka Honey that your budget allows. You can see our full reviews of a wide range of Manuka Honeys here.
However, if you’re suffering from digestive distress, we suggest using a high UMF honey to get the full potential of Manuka Honey’s benefits.
The UMF 24 honey by NZ Honey Co is our #1 pick.
It’s one of the highest UMF products on the market, and the company is one of the most reputable on the scene today. And we can assure you it’s absolutely delicious too!
Sending you health!
