The Daily Mail of Britain reports that a new study shows that honey helps to delay aging and reduce anxiety. Adding honey to the diet improved the memory of the mice used in the experiment and alleviated their anxiety symptoms.
Lynn Copris and Nicola Starke of the University of Waikato in New Zealand conducted the experiment with mice. They mixed 10% honey, 8% sucrose, or no sugar into the mice's food and fed them for a year. At the beginning of the experiment, the mice were only two months old. The scientists conducted tests for purposeful anxiety and spatial memory on the mice every three months to get the evaluation results. They found that the mice fed with honey exited the complex maze twice as often as the normal mice, with the sucrose-fed mice coming in second. This showed that they had lighter anxiety symptoms. They were also more likely to enter the novel arm of the Y-shaped maze, which showed that they knew where they had been before, and thus they had better spatial memory ability.
Dr. Starke said: "A diet with honey may help to alleviate anxiety symptoms and improve memory during the aging process." She believes that this result should be attributed to the antioxidant properties of honey, which have been proven in humans before. In ancient times, humans used honey as food, medicine, and beauty products. The time to obtain honey through beekeeping can be traced back to at least 700 BC. Bees combine saliva with nectar to produce a chemical reaction that produces honey. It is used as an antiseptic in the treatment of ulcers, burns, and wounds. It also contains a variety of trace elements that help prevent some cancers and colds.
Because honey is good for your health, its sales are rising rapidly. Mintel, a retail analyst, said that honey sales have risen by 14% in the past two years, and honey has become the second best-selling product in the dessert market.