Active Manuka Honey New Zealand
What is it?

Honey Bees at AllPosters

During the last two decades active manuka honey New Zealand gained world fame for its high healing qualities. When Professor Peter Molan (http://honey.bio.waikato.ac.nz) of the Waikato University in New Zealand reviewed and researched the claim, made one hundred years earlier, that honey has antibacterial qualities.

Taking samples from different apiaries within New Zealand he rediscovered something known in folk’s medicine since more than 2 millennia. All honeys have naturally antibacterial activities due to their Hydrogen Peroxide content. This content is easily destroyed by light and heat. Theses powers, too, vary from region to region, pollen to pollen, bees, and time of gathering.

Additionally his research showed in Manuka honey an antibacterial activity independent from Hydrogen Peroxide that is unaffected by light or heat. The newly found characteristic is often called and trademarked UMF, Unique Manuka Factor. The number behind indicates the amount of antibacterial activity. Manuka honey without UMF number is classified as table honey.


Test results from different laboratories returned different results from samples of the same batch. A fact followed by a research request to the University in Dresden in Germany (www.tu-dresden.de) to Professor Dr. Henle. In 2008 he declared his finding "unambiguously demonstrates for the first time that Methylglyoxal is directly responsible for the antibacterial activity in Manuka honey."

In these tests the quantity of Methylglyoxal is determined. A compound naturally collected by the bees from Manuka flowers. On honey jars it is viewable under the trademark label MGO. The higher the MGO number the more of the antibacterial compound is in the honey.


New Zealand honey and honeydew, from the Canterbury region, were in 2006 researched at the Agriculture and Life Sciences Division at Lincoln University in Christchurch (http://www.lincoln.ac.nz). Studies showed that Manuka honey is extremely antioxidant rich and had the highest levels on none Hydrogen Peroxide related antibacterial activity. The labelling shows these findings under the trademark AAH standing for Antibacterial Antioxidant Honey. The higher the number the higher is the tested activity.


Since hundreds of years many of the tree’s beneficial health properties are recognized and put leaves, bark, gum, and sap into medicinal use by the Maori people.

Manuka honey New Zealand, excels from use in beauty and skin care products to preventive and therapeutic medicinal use. Internally used the honey helps to maintain health or to restore health, while externally it surprises practitioners with its results in wound care or as wound dressing.

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