Scientists in Sweden are launching their own mead — an alcoholic beverage made from a fermented mix of honey and water — based on old recipes they say could help in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
Together with a brewery, the scientists, who have long studied bees and their honey, have launched their own mead drink: Honey Hunter’s Elixir.
Lund University researcher Tobias Olofsson said mead had a long track record in bringing positive effects on health.
“Mead is an alcoholic drink made with just honey and water, and it was regarded as the drink of the gods and you could become immortal or sustain a better health if you drank it,” Olofsson said. “It was drunk by the Vikings for example and other cultures such as the Mayas, the Egyptians, and it was a drink that was regarded as a very beneficial drink.”
Honey production is key to the research. In previous research published in 2014, Olofsson and Alejandra Vasquez discovered that lactic-acid bacteria found in the honey stomach of bees, mixed with honey itself, could cure chronic wounds in horses that had proved resistant to treatment.
They said their research had proved that these bacteria had the power to collaborate and kill off all the human pathogens they have been tested against, including resistant ones. They are doing so by producing hundreds of antibacterial antibiotic-like substances.
What makes Honey Hunter’s Elixir different from other types of modern mead drinks is that is uses all 13 beneficial honeybee lactic-acid bacteria and the wild yeasts from honey that normally ferment mead spontaneously.
According to the team, commercial honey does not contain these bacteria. Since the honey and water mixture is sterilized before later adding industrial wine yeast, all other life in the honey, including wild yeast, is killed off.
The researchers say the drink contains 100 billion of these 13 different living and collaborating lactic-acid bacteria.
Olofsson said they believed mead could have been the most efficient historical equivalent to today’s antibiotics, and they see Honey Hunter’s Elixir as a possible way of preventing infections.
“Well, we’ve seen in our research that the honey bees actually add great flora of lactic-acid bacteria in honey, so the mead, when produced, is actually fermented by these lactic-acid bacteria together with wild yeasts and the lactic-acid bacteria can really kill off all the dangerous pathogens that are even resistant against antibiotics,” Olofsson said. “So our thinking is that the mead, when you consume the mead, these (antibacterial substances in) lactic-acid bacteria in the drink can actually be transferred to your blood and help you when you are infected with dangerous bacteria or promote health, preventing infections.”
In 2005, Olofsson and Vasquez discovered that many beneficial bacteria reside within honeybees in a structure called honey crop, which is the organ in which honeybees collect nectar for honey production.
As a result, their research has since focused on how this can be applied to functional foods, as alternative medical tools against infections and bee health.
The mead is part of this research, which is summarized on the website.
“We will have volunteers drinking this drink and measure different parameters to see if the compounds the bacteria produce could end up in the blood system and for that to cause a prevention or a cure for infections,” Vasquez said, adding that more research was needed.
“We don’t really know at the moment exactly which kind of infectious disease we could counteract in the future because we need to understand this thoroughly,” she said. “At the moment we know that the bacteria produce very interesting compounds, a lot of different weapons like antibiotics but a lot of them that collaborate and those weapons or the key in use in this viable bacteria in the future.”
If human trials are successful, it could help doctors overturn the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, in both First World countries and also in the developing world where fresh honey is more readily accessible than antibiotics.
In recent years antibiotic resistance has become a critical issue for global health, with an ever increasing number of strains of bacteria developing immunity.
Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2015. Follow Reuters on Twitter.
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ILZE FILKS, REUTERS
Original article:
Awesome stuff! I have a bottle in my refrigerator right now. Maybe I’d better drink it, for science of course.
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Yes indeed, it’s good for you! Check my older posts, I made some a couple of years ago, interesting process.
Thanks for the comment.
Joanna
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I made some too, and it’s fun. I need to do it again with a bit more yeast removal during the ferment.
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Reblogged this on Smillie's People and commented:
It is always nice when you can truthfully use the excuse, I am drinking this because it is medicinal
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[…] an ancient Viking honey liquor could be the answer to antibiotic-resistant […]
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[…] an ancient Viking honey liquor could be the answer to antibiotic-resistant […]
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[…] “Scientists in Sweden are launching their own mead — an alcoholic beverage made from a fermented mix of honey and water — based on old recipes they say could help in the fight against antibiotic resistance.” This ancient liquor popular among Vikings may be the answer to antibiotic resistance – Ancient… […]
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Hi, Honey is known to have antibiotic qualities. You must know that honey thousands of years old has been found that is still safe to eat. Alcohol also has disinfectant qualities and fermented alcohol products were also used to clean wounds in ages past. Since these practices were abandoned in modern times when antibiotics and rubbing alcohol were discovered, it is understandable that bacteria would now be less resistant to older methods. This is all very well known, so why is this such a surprising finding?
I might also point out that excessive consumption of mead has the same disadvantages as overconsumption of other types of alcohol. It’s NOT a panacea. It also might be more effective to treat the infected areas topically, rather than to just generally flood your body with mead–as pleasant a treatment as that would undoubtedly be.
BTW I have been going through your very interesting archives. Thank you for your posts.
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I never meant to imply that mead was to be used to treat any injury. I would just apply the honey directly to the wound,yes I am well aware of honeys properties, but thanks for the observations.
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