Medical Honey for Wound Care—Still the ‘Latest Resort’?

While the ancient Egyptians and Greeks used honey for wound care, and a broad spectrum of wounds are treated all over the world with natural unprocessed honeys from different sources, Medihoney™ has been one of the first medically certified honeys licensed as a medical product for professional wound care in Europe and Australia. Our experience with medical honey in wound care refers only to this product. In this review, we put our clinical experience into a broader perspective to comment on the use of medical honey in wound care. More prospective randomized studies on a wider range of types of wounds are needed to confirm the safety and efficacy of medical honey in wound care. Nonetheless, the current evidence confirming the antibacterial properties and additional beneficial effects of medical honey on wound healing should encourage other wound care professionals to use CE-certified honey dressings with standardized antibacterial activity, such as Medihoney™ products, as an alternative treatment approach in wounds of different natures

Biphasic assembly of the murine intestinal microbiota during early development.

The birth canal provides mammals with a primary maternal inoculum, which develops into distinctive body site-specific microbial communities post-natally. We characterized the distal gut microbiota from birth to weaning in mice. One-day-old mice had colonic microbiota that resembled maternal vaginal communities, but at days 3 and 9 of age there was a substantial loss of intestinal bacterial diversity and dominance of Lactobacillus. By weaning (21 days), diverse intestinal bacteria had established, including strict anaerobes. Our results are consistent with vertical transmission of maternal microbiota and demonstrate a nonlinear ecological succession involving an early drop in bacterial diversity and shift in dominance from Streptococcus to Lactobacillus, followed by an increase in diversity of anaerobes, after the introduction of solid food. Mammalian newborns are born highly susceptible to colonization, and lactation may control microbiome assembly during early development