Sweet news for those who are looking for new effective antibiotics: for the first time scientists have discovered the secret, how honey kills bacteria. The opening of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) showed that bees create a protein that is added to honey, called defensin-1.
It turned out that this protein can be used to treat burns and skin infections and to develop new drugs to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.
Specialists have investigated antibacterial activity of honey in test tubes for a group resistant to antibiotics and pathogenic bacteria. As a result, the defensin-1 protein was isolated, which serves as a part of the immune system of insects and is added to honey by bees. It was found that the vast majority of antibacterial properties of honey emanate from this protein.
News. Gradusnik. En.