The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Current Research on Medical Grade Honey. Interview with Ferhat Ozturk Ph.D. More than a sweetener!

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

This is the audio track from this YouTube video:  https://youtu.be/Jzp8PbmczjU

So hello and welcome to another episode of interviews with experts. Today, my very special guest is Dr. Fairhot Ostert. Dr. Osirk is the project director of the Honey Pathway in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas, San Antonio. What if I told you that putting honey on your teeth could heal your gums or strengthen tooth enamel? Or how about medical grade honey that heals when tradition? treatments fail what plants are producing the most medicinally potent raw honey well we cover all of these topics and more in this fascinating interview today is

February the 12th of 2025 I'm Frederick Dunn and this is the way to be okay so hello and welcome Fairhot I want to thank you for joining me today for this way to be discussion this is a very important topic And Dr. Robin Underwood spoke highly of you and says that you have collaborated on some of the topics that she's dealing with with spotted lanternfly honey. In fact, honey-do honey. So if you would, please just tell us a little bit about where you're currently located, what your job is today, and what you do for living. First of all, thank you so much for having me. So currently I am at University of Texas, San Antonio, and I live in San Antonio, Texas.

I'm currently the project director of the Honey Pathway, which is funded by USDA's NextGen program. And also, I'm an associate professor of instruction. So I teach biosciences, Van, which is the introductory biology for the science majors. And also I'm teaching medicinal properties of honey as a research class for the biology and other students. Okay, great. So we met, thank you so much for introducing yourself to me, by the way, down in Austin, Texas for the Texas State Beekeepers Association Conference. That was great, and I'm sorry I didn't have much time to talk then, and you didn't either because you were very busy yourself.

But this is a fantastic area to be researching. And so I think it's something that a lot of people misunderstand and even may not, they may attribute things to honey as far as health benefits go that don't exist. There aren't true just as well as they might miss some of the attributes. that absolutely are beneficial to people in particular. So would you talk a little bit about what honey is, because we have to assume that some people just don't even know. And then again, what is it about honey that makes it useful in medicine? Sure.

I mean, honey is the, you know, when the nectar is converted by the honeybees, that the nectar is collected from the flower blossoms or from the secretion of the plant. or excretion of the insects. So honeybees collect this nectar, which is sucrose. So it converts into glucose and fructose and puts them into high concentration sugar with low moisture.

And then it's a sweet substance that we use for millennia or even more than that. And honey has been used as a medicine for thousands of years more than as a food because honey was hard to harvest. Because even today we have high. honey hunters in Turkey or in Nepal or in other countries. So which means that honey was hunted for thousands of years or hundreds of years

until the Egyptians were able to domesticate the honeybees and started using them for the agriculture throughout the Nile. So and then so honey was mostly found in the homes on the healers or the daytime medical doctors. and it was used either as is, as a medical device and also a medical application, or it was used as a base to be mixed with other medicinal plants or items. So again, Hanibah is most used as a medicine, and it's also well known as the nectar of gods in the Egyptians. So it is all because of it is rarity and also it is medicinal benefits.

Okay, that's very interesting. I'm going to throw you a curveball here, since you're mentioning Egypt, okay, because a lot of people like to quote, and this is one of the things that I'm having a hard time finding scientific proof of, and that's the honey that they attribute to being found in King Tut's tomb in Egypt. Yeah. Yeah, and so, but then when you try to track that down, there's no inventory of that in the archive in Cairo. do you think honey has that kind of lasting ability in a clay pot or what? I mean, honey has that lasting ability as long as it is kind of protected from direct light and then heat. So honey will not spoil for like even hundreds of years.

Again, you don't have an experiment that we can show our life is not enough, I think, for that. But the honey that is found in the clay pot in King Tutankhamun's tomb was an evidence that honey doesn't spoil. But to honest, yes, you're right. The only information I found, most of the information I found is it was discovered during the digging or opening of the tomb. And then they found honey in 1922, actually. It's about almost 100 years ago. And that's the anecdotal evidence. Again, I did not see where the honey is located.

Probably it should be in the British Museum because I know most of the items were moved to British Museum like to be shown to the audience. But again, I don't know where it's exactly now. And again, I also read over some articles that it was analyzed for its, like for its completeness, it is still honey. But again, I don't have a direct scientific evidence that where the honey is and what are the properties of that honey?

Yeah, because I think they were very interested because obviously if it's in someone's tomb, and there was some spectral analysis done to prove that the container had residue of honey or bits of wax, and so that's what they speculate that that's what was in it. And so it was considered a medicine thousands of years ago, and we probably don't know a lot about how they might have used it,

So how far back does your research go in antiquity as far as medicine goes? I mean, the oldest one I think that we know is there are some, like in some tablets of the Sumerians and lived in Mesopotamia. They mentioned about using honey for some diseases, but again, I don't have all the anthropological evidence like information for me. about 500 pepperi in the Egyptian pepperies, like which were discovered by Edwin, I think it was called Edwin's Pepperis, Peppers. So they found out like Egyptians mentioned about honey and honeybees and about 500 pages of their hieroglyphs,

also in the hieroglyphs, but also in the papyrgy that they have. And also there are some texts from the Indian, wish no no i forgot the exact name but in the in the vedas uh in the but i don't know how much all the vadas were written in text but yes in the hittites in anatolia that they leave they also have some uh text that mentions about the use of honey for medical purposes but which means about like about four or five thousand years ago right wow so then i have to ask why is this something that you are personally interested in, and what made you think that today that this is the time to be really advancing that research?

I mean, my background is in cell and molecular biology. So I did my PhD in gene therapy as I was studying about how we can change the genes of the pregnant sheep so that we can fix a disease during the gestation. So then I moved to Nebraska Medical Center and created a university as well. So I studied about cardiovascular gene therapy. Then I studied about cleft palate. So in one of, we had a mouse model that we were trying to fix the cleft palate during the pregnancy in the, you know, in the mother's womb, like it's a mid-gastation. So that's how I kind of started interesting in wood healing because the cleft palate is basically, there are two palatal shells that go vertical first and then they go horizontal and they meet and they're center.

And they become a confluent palate. So if the palate is not confluent, which means that if the wound is not healed completely, then when the face grows during the embryogenesis, so it will split and it will becomes a cleft palate. So the mechanism in this polytogenesis is the epithelial cells, which is covering these shelves, they need to be converted or transited into mesenchymal cells, which is moving. Like immobile cells becomes mobile. and then by this way, this is the confluent palate is, you know, occurred.

So this, the same mechanism is also seen in the cancer, in the metastasis, when the cancer cells needs to move from one location to another one, they need to be mobile. So they are transited from epithelial to mesencomal, and also the same thing in fibrosis and so forth. So I was like, then I found that it's the wound healing mechanism. Actual wound healing mechanism is the main source of this epithelial mesencomal. transition. So when I said about wound healing, I came across that honey is one of the most

advanced wound healers for thousands of years used by almost every civilization on earth. And I was reading those articles. And then also, I mean, I'm a Muslim by practice. So when I was reading the religious scripture, the Quran, that it was, there's a verse it says very openly that within the bellies or the honeybees, there is a healing for human. mankind. So and then this is definitely referring to the honey within the valleys of the honeybees. And it's a varying color and these varying colors can have a healing for different diseases. It's also my motivational point. So my scientific background and also my cultural religious background, it's kind of all motivated me to, you know, going to the honey research. And then, and meanwhile,

I got an offer from my hometown in Turkey that they were establishing a honey research center. in 2012 and the university's president, he came to a conference in Chicago and he was meeting with possible candidates to, you know, to become faculty in the new university. And interestingly enough, I mean, they were opening molecular biology and genetics department and honey research center will be under their department. So it was fitting perfectly with my scientific background and also honey is something coming new to me at that time. So when I get more involved, okay, I, approved the offer to become an assistant professor, and eventually I become a department chair in the same department. And then when I moved to Turkey, like I found out people are highly interested in honey as a medicine.

Because Turkey's location is in Anatolia, and Anatolia has been a cradle of civilizations. And the Sumerians and Hittits or other civilizations like they lived in Anatolia, they have a lot of, like, evidences that they use honey for medical purposes. And especially Avicenna or Ibn Isina. The book, The Ken of Medicine, which is the five volume of medical textbook that was used during the Renaissance in Europe for about 500 years. So the second volume is about pharmacology. And Avicenna describes more than 35 different recipes using honey for wound healing, for cough, or even some neurological disorders.

So all these things like I keep learning about honey as the people visit the honey center or as I learned through my professor, Camrothin Muhammad Yusuf, so he's a Malaysian professor and he worked on honey for about 30 years since his postdoc. And then he also instilled the love of honey in me. And also my university's present, Professor Beck Damer, he also helped me a lot. He's an organic chemist. So the biochemist, organic chemist, and cell biologists. So we get together and we just kind of keep digging to better understand

medicinal properties of honey and people showed a lot of interest in it especially again i learned that honey is eventually i realized that honey touches everybody's life like younger or older or male or female um depending regards of their culture so everybody either eat honey or they use honey for medical purposes and i started listening more and more or hearing more and more stories that how honey has been as a medicine so it's kind of increased my motivation and then and honey has become my patient. So I would say about 12 years, 13 years, I'm involved with the honey. And even my toughest times in my life, like when I,

I don't know, how should I go into the political things? But when it was a political terminal in Turkey in 2016, the stage coup attempt? So my university was shut down. I lost my academic position with about 8,000 other academicians were laid off. So I ended up coming to the United States. and I was not prepared to start academia very quickly. So I had like very different jobs meanwhile, but I never lost my passion with honey

and I applied jobs that I can still teach about honey and learn about honey and also do research about honey. So that's where I am right now, so after this many years. So now were you at all frustrated by how behind the United States is in their acceptance of, honey as medicine or is there a big divide between the holistic practitioners compared to the scientific and institutional community? How does that challenge you with your work? I mean, maybe I can give a little bit background which countries studies honey the most or do

the research about honey. So New Zealand is number one because of Professor Peter Mullen in 1990. So New Zealand and Australia, they have, I would say they have the highest number of publications about medicinal properties of honey, especially antimicrobial properties. And then there are several studies from Malaysia. So Malaysia is one of the first countries did the clinical trials in using honey in orthopedic surgeries, orthopedic centers, so in early 2000s. And then other countries took up on this. And then when we, I mean, this is one of the first things that in the beginning of my class,

I asked my students go to PubMed and then search for. honey antibacterial, honey antioxidant, or honey medicine. So when they do their research, and they also told them like affiliation, make it the United States. So when they make it, there are like thousands of papers, but when you're limited to United States, it is like just a handful of papers that is published with the affiliation in the United States. So this kind of encourage me that this is something that people of this country need to know because U.S. is like there's a lot of honey is being produced in this country and there's all the varieties again produced by the local beekeepers. So then I kind of like devoted myself that I should

find out which local honeies has more medicinal potential. So I first started in Michigan when I was at the Alma College in Michigan in 2017 or 2018 actually I taught a class bees and medicinal honey. It's a short-term summer class. So and it's a short-term summer class. So and it's a, was a kind of a very important turning point for me because the beekeepers were very much willing to their honey to be analyzed. So we collected 150 honey samples in just a couple of months and maybe two months. And then we analyzed those honey samples with my students in the class. And I found out like buckwheat honey for the first time I came across to it. And I found that buckwheat honey is one of the most promising medical grade honeies. And it was very rich in antioxidants.

So I was able to, you know, discover one of the first medical grade honeies. And I know there are other studies about WACBET, but not from Michigan, but it was from New England or other places. So then I came to San Antonio, Texas, and then I also get involved with Texas Beacabees Association to collect honey samples. It wasn't with the COVID time, but even it was the COVID time, I volunteered to work in the lab. and so there's one professor from here, Professor Kelly Nash.

So she opened up her lab to me and then she helped me with the chemicals. So I was able to analyze Texan honeies when I was a high school teacher during the COVID time. So and then I got the offer for the Integrative Biology Department in 22. So was I frustrated that the honey's medicinal value was not well known? Instead of frustration, I was surprised and I saw this as a, an opportunity to spread the knowledge. And then since then, I mean, I've been visiting different conferences. Like, I've been invited to ABF for last three years.

And I was also went to Eastern Epiculture Society last summer. And I also been involved in Chicago. And like, I'm traveling different places. And the most importantly, I was in Apimonia, in Chile, Santiago last year. And it was the first time that somebody from U.S. presented about medicinal honey. that local honey has medicinal value. So it was the first time that I was able to introduce

to the global beekeeper organization that U.S. or Texas has medical grade honeies in there produced by the local beekeepers. And then since then, I got more interactions with the international people too. So again, this is an opportunity, I believe, and there is a lot to do research about medicinal properties of local honeies.

And for your second part of the question about holistic approach for the medicine versus the modern medicine, I don't think there is a big, there is not a big gap as it used to be. So that gap is getting closer because medical doctors or the physicians or the health professionals are getting more interested about learning the holistic approach or the integrative medicine. And as you know, even under NIH, there is an organization, National Institute of Complementary Integrative Medicine, which is helping to provide guidance and regulations about using Integrative Medicine or Cochlamatory Medicine products to be used in the modern medicine today. So, and I believe this gap is getting shorter.

And also the future generations are getting more interested in learning honey for medicine. And I see a lot of interest from my students or from the students from different parts of the country so that they are interested and they're asking questions. about this. So now when you spoke with me down in Austin, I think you said that the Texas honey was outperforming some of the other regions of the United States. And we know that the honey is highly dependent upon the floral source.

So can you explain what it is about what's going on in Texas that makes their honey so good as far as much? Maybe I should make another correction, but maybe an edit. So I think I mentioned that some of the Texan honeies are out-competing manuka honeies, which is the well-known medical grade honey in the world. So some of the San Antonio honeies or like Hill Country honey is, they do have antimicrobial and antioxidant potential than the monoco honeies that we analyze in our lab. So we have about 40 manico samples.

But I don't have so much resource or so much samples from other states or from other regions that how those can be compared. Because when I compare Texan honey and Michigan honey, they both have, you know, medicinal potential. So they both have high antaroxin properties and antimicrobial properties. So again, it's not very easy to compare like statewide. But I would say, for example, within Texas,

one region, which is the hill country in north of San Antonio and south of Austin. So hill country is like one of the highest medicine, potential honey centers or regions that I would say in the overall Texas among the 400 samples that we collected. So right now I have about 84 samples from California. So thanks to the California beekeepers, they invited me to give a talk in Alamada County and then also in the Santa Clara. So we were able to collect samples from the local beekeepers in those two counties, northern South California. And now we are analyzing them for their biocativity potential. So again,

I don't have the results yet, but we will probably have the results by March or April, and we'll be able to publish them. So then this will give me a little bit better picture how the California honey and Texan honeies are comparable. And also, I'm planning to get more honey samples from like eastern side, especially to the EAS or maybe other locations of the U.S. So hopefully we can get more samples and we can analyze them and to have a fingerprint of the local honeies in different regions of Texas.

But it's a pretty big project, and I'll probably need several people to work on this. So I know that there are beekeepers watching and listening to this right now, wondering how they can get their honey to be included in the circle of the high and medicinal value category of honey, right? So you mentioned buckwheat as one really strong source. Dr. Underwood is talking about the spotted lanternfly honey-dew honey. Have you tested that at all?

Yes, yes, we did. I mean, that's okay, how should I say? So that's another regional honey. So I should have skipped it. But that's one, like spotted lanternfly honey. We most of them are collected from Pennsylvania and New Jersey area that Dr. Robin Underwood, she collected those samples and shared them with me to analyze their biocativity potential. So we found that, again, majority of the spotted lanternfly honey is they are highly antimicrobial.

And some of them outcompete monocale samples as well. And then they're also highly antioxidant. Again, I just got some results yesterday about total phenolic contents. And some of them are like very, very high. Some of them are the highest that I have ever tested in this lab. So their gallic acid equivalents are more than 200. So it was the first time I see more than 200. it. So which is, I mean, other than other samples, but anyway, so this is kind of like gamey and

understanding that, like spotted lanternfly honey is one of the strongest candidate to become medical grade honey of the U.S. Like Manukkah Honey of New Zealand, we can probably say spotted lanternfly honey of the U.S. will be a very strong candidate to be considered as medical great honey. But again, buckwheat honey is not very strong antimicrobial. They are mostly strong antioxidants. So again, we will continue to analyze sources. But one major problem with the sources is, like, when we have the honey, most of the beekeepers do not identify the nectar source because they don't know where their honeybees goes. Like, there's not an easy way to track them. So that's why we will be collaborating with Penn State University for their DNA pollen

biomarker analysis. So DNA metabarketing analysis, sorry. And then hopefully, They can do the pollen analysis. I mean, the beekeepers send their samples to the Penn State for pollen DNA analysis, and we can do the biactivity analysis. So by this way, we can have a better understanding of which pollen or which nectar sources have more medicinal potential. So is pollen the only way to identify a honey source? I mean, pollen and the DNA, because for spotted lanternfly honey, we only identify it because of the DNA from the insect.

But other than that, we also have DNA from the bees. But again, it needs additional, like, technology to extract the DNA from, like, it's called cell-free DNA, to extract DNA from the honeybees remnants or from their stomach and so forth. But, yeah, it can be also identified about the source of honey. There's also volatile compounds inside the honey, like kind of when you smell them. So those volatile compounds can also tell us the source of the honey as well. But again, these are all fields that we need to get improved on those. This is all really interesting.

And I like the fact that this stuff is up to date. Like yesterday, you're mentioning examples that you've tested. I have another question about this. If it's proven to be a stronger source for medicine, this is for people, is it also better for the bees? In other words, these high medicinal value, honeies, do the bees do better? Do they resist disease better? What's the impact on the bee itself? I mean, that's a very good question. And the answer is yes. So there's a study that was published,

I think, last year or 23, when I was getting prepared to present about medicinal plants or medicinal plants for medicinal honey. So I found out that there was a study in Azerbaijan. So they collected honey samples. And it's a very well organized and very well written text. So they collected honey samples from different elevations, from different hives. So they had some honey samples from high elevations in the mountainous area, and they also had honey samples from more flat like prairies. And then when they compare, where do these bees get their antioxidants? So they found out the higher the elevation, the higher the antioxidant potential was coming from those honeybee hives.

So we know that, I mean, we know that the bees are very sterile and they are very careful about not to have any pathogens in their hives. So the most thing when the, especially the feral bees, when they find a new hive in an ampity log or wood, so what they do first is they just cover it with propolis. So avoid any fungal or bacterial infection that may come from the decomposed wood. So by this way, they are protecting their hive as they cover it with propolis, and then everything is kind of more sterile and safe and healthy

inside them. So, and on the other hand, bees collect more antioxidant, rich nectar from the upper elevations. And also, we know that the trees on the upper elevations, they are more resistant when compared to the trees on the prairies or lower elevations, because those trees, they need to resist the freezing cold, maybe, or they also resist the winds. and all those things. So those trees are producing more secondary metabolites. And then those secondary metabolites, such as phenolic acids or flaminates or tannins or glycosides.

So these are all also mostly offered in their bark or their secretions and also they are offered in their flowers. Like for example, chestnut is one of the high elevation trees. And in Turkey, chestnut honey is well known with its medicinal properties. And we most defined chestnut tree under, you know, high elevations of like northern Turkey. Or another one is oak tree. Again, we don't find oak trees very much on the prairies, but in the northeastern, northwestern part of Turkey, which is the Estrangea mountains, but throughout Bulgaria.

So they have lots of oak trees, and those oaks have affids on them. They also have their own secretions. So the bees make the oak honey. And again, oak honey is one of the darkest honey. like it's almost the black honey, I would say. And then, again, oak honey has been found to be one of the highest antimicrobial and antioxidant honey is available.

So Tuolang honey, for example, in Malaysia, it is mostly collected from high elevation and high elevated trees. So it's about like about 30 feet above the ground. So the bees make their hives and the honey bee, honey hunters, they collect this Tuolang honey or or gallum honey from the top of the trees. And again, it is mostly found in the high elevation.

So the high elevations provide more antioxidant, more antirecular properties. And also, we know in the hill country, although it's a high elevation, there is not so much agriculture happening in the hill country of Texas. But we know that when there is no, that's so much agriculture, the trees also become more resistant or like naturally, they are resistant to Texas drought. And those trees, again, they are producing a lot of secondary metabolites

that makes them resistant to drought or dirt. And then when the bees collect the nectar from the Hillcan tree forage and theirs honeies are becoming also more medicinal. So we can tell them like, bees are collecting the nectar for themselves

primarily and then they store the honey extra and then we collect those honeies for our medicinal use. So it is both beneficial. shell for the bees and for human life. That is this is really interesting. Okay, so somebody's listening, I know they've run out and they started planting chestnut trees and oat trees today. So, now you mentioned the high tannin content. What about, so then black walnut trees and things like that? Do we know anything about those? Okay, so only black walnut honey samples that I have

is spotted lanternfly samples. Right. So, you know, like the spotted lanternfish, and things. So, you know, like the spotted lanternflies, they are sap feeder. So they go to the, you know, the tree, and then they insert their mouthpiece and they suck the flame, and they got the sugar out of the tree. And one of the most visited or most attacked trees is the black walnut. So by the spotted lanternfly honeies. So I assume, again, it's not very easy to find the from the pollen source because black walnut doesn't have pollen, as far as I know.

And the only way that we find the, it is spotted antinfly honey is because of the insect DNA. So it's also kind of our dilemma right now. How are we going to identify spotted lanternfly honey based on the pollen? It's very hard. So anyway, overall, like I have some samples, which I assume they are coming from black walnut trees, and they are pretty high in their antimicrobial ana-turksome potentials. So they are highly biactive. That's what I can tell now.

Okay, so beekeepers, some of them are listening to this right now thinking, hmm, what could I plant this year that would provide my bees with a higher medicinal value to their honey? So we mentioned buckwheat. What else? Could you give us a short list of if somebody had a field and they could plant it? What would be high on the list of things that would provide higher medicinal value to the honey? I mean, as a cover crop, buckwheat is the best option, I would say. So because you can, but wheat has, as far as I know, it has a flowering season of almost two months.

So they have a continuous flowering season depending on the, again, climate. So this is providing a lot of nectar source for the honeybees. But other than that, I mean, I don't have a full list, but I know the golden road is, the golden road honey is also a very good potential. And goldenwood is naturally occurring in every place, I believe, in most of the place in Texas. But in terms of the plants, I mean, there's something called the, it's called a Fasulia or I forgot the exact name, but there's a bee brush is one of them that they can do or the sage brush that can also be helpful. Again, I'm mostly talking about Texan trees. But, yeah, these are like, I would say if they can get dark color honey from any of those plants, so they can keep planting more of those plants.

So in short, I will tell those. Okay, so that's the next part of my question, too, is you do mention, because a buckwheat honey, very dark, very strong aroma and everything. So is there a correlation with the color of the honey? Like these high medicinal value honeies, are they all dark, and do they have a lot of material in them? Yes, and no. I mean, yes, there is a correlation between the antioxidant potential and darkness. because this darkness of honey is mostly coming from phenolics and tenens. And these are the major source of antioxidant potential.

So the darker the color of honey, the higher anti-oxygen potential. But in terms of antimicrobial activity, there is no, we could not find in a correlation between the color of the honey and antimicabial potential. So that's why I said yes and no. So what I recommend to the people when I have presentations, I always tell them, find a local beekeeper. and get dark honey from the local beekeepers, like fall harvest mostly. And if possible, get the comb honey.

So like comb honey, because it is sealed and it is sterile and nobody has touched it before. So the bees made the honey and sealed it. And as a consumer, you are the person who is opening for the first time after the bees has sealed it. So there is no exposure to air or there is no heating or there's no exposure to any other you know, things or chemical or temperature changes that may affect the honey's property. So that's my comb honey is my favorite. And also dark honey is also another important property here. But I also would like to tell one thing.

You can darken the honey by applying heat. So that's an important thing because it needs to be natural darker, not heated darker. So because there are some chemical reactions happening inside the honey due to the enzymes. So when you put the honey in like 100 Fahrenheit or above, so eventually these, between 100 to 120, there are chemical reactions that can make the honey darker color. And the longer it stayed on those temperatures, the color will become get darker. So it's not natural dark, but it is kind of a temperature-based darkness. So my next question is, once the honey is, you mentioned golden rod.

There's a whole bunch of different golden rod species. But it also has a hypertensity to, you know, crystallize. Does the crystallization of the honey reduce or in all change its medicinal qualities? Actually, no. Crystallization is, you know, it is a natural process and it shows that the honey is natural. There is pollen in it and there's glucose in it. because crystallization only occurs if there is enough pollen inside the honey, and those glucose molecules will attach to the pollen, and they will start crystallizing.

So, and as you mentioned, some of the honeies crystallize very early, like canola honey is crystallizing even in the comb before you extract it. Or some of the honey is like sunflower and or acacia honey, they crystallize within a month, but there are some honeies which don't crystallize for years, like oak honey is one of them. They don't crystallize. Even chestnut honey, they don't crystallize for a quite long time.

So again, crystallization is a natural process and it doesn't lose the properties because most of the time when we get our samples and, you know, it's room temperature, but sometimes our lab is cold and we start seeing that the honeies are getting crystallized.

So what we do is we just put them in a warm water bath and make sure that they are You know, they are not completely dissolved, but dissolved enough that we can mix it and get a homogeneous sample. And that's how we analyze them. So, again, crystallization do not change, as far as I know, do not change the medicinal potential of honey. Heating is the number one problem. I mean, heating is the one that changes the medicinal potential. But even freezing may not change the medicinal potential.

I have not tried it directly, but in my experience, you know, if you can freeze honey and dough honey and eat it as is, it doesn't change the taste of it, or it doesn't change the texture too much. And so probably it doesn't change the medicinal potential either. So at what temperature does honey actually freeze? Because I know when we put it in the freezer, it's still pretty, it's like it's not frozen.

It's just at freezer temperatures. At what temperature does it actually freeze? I don't know the answer for that. I just put it in the freezer. and take it out and I mean probably the wax if you put the honey with the wax in it that may freeze faster I believe or again I don't know okay so let's and we want to warn the people that have honey that are listening to this the real threat to your honey quality is the upper temperatures that you're exposing it to

so you mentioned putting it into a hot bath what's the temperature that you're using for that okay so normally like the temperature cut off for the enzymes inside the honey to get denatured is 55 degrees Celsius, so which is almost 125 Fahrenheit. So this is the cutoff that your honey should not be heated or should not be warmer than 125 Fahrenheit. So and other than that, like when you put your honey into a water bath, so depending on how fast the water is heating the honey, so I usually put them into like 65 to 70 Celsius, but we don't allow it to completely melt.

and then get the whole heat. So it's kind of, heat is starting from the side, going to inside. So but we just take it out as soon as it is ready to be mixed well. So you also mention that the amount of time. I'm sorry, go ahead. I mean, the highest temperature, highest safe temperature is like 120, 125. Okay. And so, and you also mention that the longer it's at those temperatures,

the more detrimental it is to the honey. Yes. The longer they stay in the temperature, the, the dark, the color will be because of the chemical reactions. And especially this is happening like in Texas or maybe in Arizona or Florida as well. Because if you leave your honey inside the car, the interior temperature of the car is much higher than the outside temperature. Like if the outside 100 Fahrenheit, probably inside the car, it is 120, 130. So that's kind of like heating the honey to a very high temperature.

That should not be remaining. That's why honey should not be kept in the car in the high. hot with her or a hot panel truck or anything like that yeah those are very good points i'm going to ask you something that you might be surprised you but i was talking to dr underwood and she said something that you had mentioned about tooth enamel uh being fortified by putting honey now i was recently at the dentist and i said hey why aren't we putting honey on our teeth uh at night without brushing our teeth you want to explain a little bit behind that because I had not heard that, but also I can almost imagine why that might be good. Could you explain that to us? Why would we put honey on our teeth?

Okay. Let me kind of explain a little bit about oral microbiome. So in our mouth, I mean, we have lots of pathogens. We have lots of microorganisms. And some of them are pathogens which can cause disease, like which can decay the tooth, but most of them are friendly for us. So we have a lot of bacteria that we need in oral microbiome for digestion or for the health benefit. So, and honey has been known to support the good bacteria and harm or kill the bad bacteria or the pathogenic bacteria. So when we put the honey in our mouth, so basically, or if you leave the honey in our mouth, we expect, again, I don't have a direct experiment.

The one experiment that my student has done in the dental school was she applied fluoride, honey and some other chemicals to the tooth animals, which is like experimental tooth animals. And she found out the honey is like has the same effect or very similar effect with the fluoride. So in terms of animal degradation or protection. So again, from here I assume or I propose that like if you put honey on your teeth at night

or maybe you know those bleachers or whatever you put on your mouth. So if you can find a way to keep the honey in your mouth for a while, it will help the good bacteria to thrive and will fight with the bad bacteria, which can cause like tooth decays. So that's how honey can help. Another one research that my students are doing right now

is they are working on gingyble fiberblasts. So, you know, gingeritis or gum disease is a very common disease, especially after some age. So basically the gums on the teeth are receding, because the tissue is getting lost. And then when it is cleaned from the tartar and so forth, so those people have lost most of their gum. So right now what we are looking is,

how does local high biobioactivity honeies or medical grade honeies can help these ginger fibroblasts, like the cells that will fill the gum, so to quickly fill the gap or the wound after the cleaning. So basically people will, like we will recommend, based on our data, we will recommend that after gingible cleaning or gum cleaning, so people can apply local biactive honey into the area. So this will enhance the healing of the gums and make it fill the blanks much faster.

So that's how it can help. And again, another study is like it's not the honey, but they put propolis in the root canal. So because propolis, they embed the propolis into some kind of foam. that will hold it in it, and they put a very small form. And then they put it in the root canal area after they clean the root of the teeth, and then they put it there because it is anti-inflammatory and it is wound healing. And it's also antimicrobial. So it doesn't allow any infection or inflammation to occur in the root canal once the root canal is done

or crown is before it is put on there. So you're saying that it stays in there? It stays. Propolis is released slowly, and as long as you have a biocompatible foam or gel or whatever, which can stay in there, so it will be just dissolved with the propolis. So do you find a lot of support for that in the dental department or dental education? I mean, yes, I have a collaborator in Morocco, and we just have work on a paper that he is also DDS PhD, So he's a very valuable scientist and dentist.

So he has done a lot of like a good amount of research on this. And again, we might have some, I don't say, resistance or negligence that like maybe the dentist in here may be hesitant to use that. But again, we already have like chem. Like already have some forms that are used in the dentistry for different dental procedures. So instead of using a chemical in it or antimicrobial agent in it, We can simply put honey or propolis, and it will do the same job or even better job with different properties. Again, when I talk to some dentist, they agree with it or they want to try it, but again, I didn't have so much exposure to the dental world.

And I think I want to be clear to the listeners and viewers that we're not handing out dental advice right now. We're just talking about what's being looked at, what's being tested. We haven't finalized, and we definitely don't represent the American Dental Association. We're not telling you to go out and stuff hunting your mouth, but there again, we also can't stop you from doing it. So whatever you think you want to trust me. So the other thing is, what is it's, doctor, I keep bringing up, you know, Robin, but because someone had a traditionally treated open wound situation on their leg that had persisted for an extended amount of time. and then when honey was used as part of the topical treatment, the healing was remarkable. Can you give an example of how honey is being used in probably the most successful or the most

dramatic way in medicine? I mean, honey is mostly used as a wound healing agent and still is one of the best wound healers. So there is, according to clinical trials, and again, I listened to one from one of the epithelope leaders, from Dr. Stefan Stangachia, he mentioned. So honey can heal more than 90% of the wounds that are not healing with conventional medication. So it's a great percentage because, and he said that that 10% is mostly the people

who might have stinging reaction when the honey is applied there because of the low pH. But other than that, honey heals the wound earlier or later, but most of the time earlier than conventional treatments. So honey is number one wound healing agent, I would say. And even today, honey is used in the burn clinics and wound clinics in different parts of the U.S. I mean, I keep hearing from, you know, nurses, from medical doctors. I even gave a talk at Texas Geriatric Society's annual meeting.

And I heard from several people that they say, yes, we are using honey or yes, we will use honey after listening to this talk. So it is becoming more and more approved and accepted. that honey is a wound healing agent or wound healing device. So it can help. So in terms of spotted lanternfly honey, and I also have a very, like before Robin, actually, I gave it to one of my friend's daughter that she has a non-healing neuropatic wound in her food

for about eight months. So eight months, she had a pretty large wound. I think it was about, I would say about two inch wide and about two inch diameter. and it was deep, you can see the bone under her feet. So it was such a big wound. And then they keep trying different medications for about eight months. And because she has neuropotting, she doesn't feel any pain.

So then I asked him, like, after my, I gave a talk in Austin, Texas, like before TVA. And then he approached him and then he said, okay, can I try, you know, biomedical honey or like a medical grade honey if you have some. I'd like to try it on my daughter. I said, okay. So he came to San Antonio. I gave him a one jar of spotted lanternfly honey that got extra last year from one of the donors. And then he applied it.

But within less than 10 weeks, I think week nine, so the wound was like more than 90% of the wound was healed. So non-healing for eight months, within nine weeks, it was almost healed. And again, we have lots and lots of clinical trials like since early 2000s. We have several clinical trials that are showing honey is used for wound healing. and even the Cochrane collaboration or Cochrane reviews in 2018, they made a clinical review of meta-analysis, I think, and they found out like most of the clinical trials are lacking proper regulations, but even then, they did not deny the value of honey that or the proper, you know, the potential of the honey for wound healing on different clinical trials. So it is being used, it has been more and more accepted, and we are having more local honeies that has the potential to be used for these wound healing applications. So how does honey that's produced by an apiary or a commercial beekeeper

ultimately end up being classified as medical grade honey? What are the steps to get it to that level? I mean, that's a very good question. Unfortunately, we don't have any regulations in the U.S. for medical grade honey. but CE, I mean, the European Union, they have, like, they have fortified their regulations only this year, actually, that how it can be considered as a medical grade, like for any, any plant or any medicinal thing, how they can be considered as medical grade. So, but overall, for a honey to be become considered as medical grade, it needs to pay some criteria. First of all, it needs to be from, like,

how should I say, like they need to have physical chemical criteria which show its honey, like color, pH, moisture, and pollen existence analysis. And then we need to analyze them for antimicrobial potential and antioxidant potential. And we come up with a biactivity level of formula that I have developed in my lab, that by using these physical chemical characteristics, antimicrobial activity, antinoxone activity, by using these values, I came up with a formula, which is described as, biological activity level. So the higher the biological activity level, the higher medicinal potential. So then this honey, before the tube used for medical purposes, it needs to be

gama sterilized because there are some endospores which may remain in the honey. And these endospores can cause infection. Again, it's a possibility. We don't see any infections, but it's a possibility. So to avoid this, honey is medical grade honey is gamma sterilized. And then it needs to be packed properly according to the medical regulations. And by the way, FDA has approved Manuka honey as medical grade honey in 2008. So in the U.S., medical grade honey is available to be used and to be developed for medical devices. So FDA has all of the approved monocou honey for this purpose. So you mentioned it had to be sterilized gamma. So we're talking gamma radiation, gamma flux. Yeah. Are you familiar with that process or how they're doing

that? I mean, there are some sterilization or, yeah, there are some sterilization labs. So what we did in Turkey, not in here, but what did we did was like we put the honey into large containers and we sent to them and they gamma sterilizer, they applied the gamma rays to the directly to the containers. And it doesn't heat honey. It doesn't change the biocity because there's also a study showing how gamma civilization can change the biactivity levels. And it's a very, very negligible. So, and then they send it back to us with the certificate that these are gamma sterilized. So we cannot do it in our lab. We need a radiation certification. Yeah, you would be, you would have to be under the nuclear regulatory commission and gamma radiation has no energy source.

It's a radioactive isotope that's fixed and shielded, where x-rays would be an energy source, then we would expose them to x-ray, but you need a much more powerful system. So a gamma radiation source, an isotope like that, travels farther, no energy, just the normal decay of whatever material they might be using a cobalt source or something like that. But that's very interesting that it neutralizes the activity without altering the honey. Yeah. Can you, is there something that really surprised you as far as the medical benefit, something you hadn't thought of that people are using honey for that benefits people?

I mean, it's mostly a historical one. It's also a little bit adult content, I would say, but honey has been used as a spermicide, so as a use for birth control in the history. So that was one of the most surprising information that I learned, but also honey was mostly mixed with some other ingredients in different cultures, and still it fortifies the power of the honey. So these are some of the most interesting things. But again, honey fascinates me every single day, I would say.

So when I read books or when I, you know, listen from the people that are studying about honey, and especially when I join epitherepytherap conferences, so like the power of honey, the healing power of honey is really mesmerizing me. Nowadays, like my students came out with some ideas that honey can be used for Alzheimer's. To prevent it also treat it because Alzheimer's caused because of oxidative stress mostly. and then honey is very rich in antioxidant. So if the senior people or people who are prone to Alzheimer's, if they consume honey regularly,

they can be prevented from the development of Alzheimer's in their brain nuts. But again, we don't have any clinical data for it or even it's very hard to try this. Or again, honey can be used for treatment of some different neurological diseases like depression and anxiety and also can help with the sleep medicine. So again, all these things need to. to be research, but again, honey keeps fascinating me every single day, I would say. Okay, I'm going to ask another question. A lot of people recommend honey for those who suffer seasonal allergies. Have you found any correlation in the consumption of honey and the reduction

of allergy stresses that people go through every single spring and fall? I also, as I moved to San Antonio, I started to have allergies. I didn't have allergies in my life before. So especially in some places, we have all these cedar, elm, or ash trees, so they cause allergies. So, first of all, technically, I'm just again, technically, it is not possible honey or any honey to initiate or desensitize allergies. Because the amount of allergen to be used for desatization is a very high amount, like the immunologist or allergen medical doctors, they use. a lot of allergen at small amounts to desensitize a person's allergies. So honey doesn't have this much of pollen in it to make it. And the second reason is honey is honey bees are collecting

the pollens from the plants which are like animal pollinated. So all the allergies that are getting exposed to are wind pollinated pollens. So like the again, cedar, elm or ash trees. So honeybees don't collect Poland from them. So for two reasons, like for two of these technical reasons, the honey coming from local bee hives may not be helpful for the allergies. But on the other hand, we have seen that local honeies has more medicinal potential than compared to the grocery store honeies. So we analyzed more than 40 honey samples in our lab compared grocery store honeies and local

honeies. And we found local honeies are about four times more biactive when compared to the grocery store honey, like 400%, I would say. So which clearly shows that local beekeeper honeies has more potential to help our immune system. So, and allergies are because of a reaction of our immune system. So if we can modulate our immune system to get prepared for allergies or to be stronger than local honey can help more for the local allergies. But again, it's very hard to correlate it directly because of these two technical impossibilities or technical problems. And what would you say about those who use honey and say, this is a problem with our social

media these days, people that have diabetes and insulin problems, They're being told by a lot of people that honey will not impact that. What do you know about diabetes and raw honey? Okay. So raw honey or most of the honeies, so again, first I would like to reiterate, not every honey is created equal. So for this reason, not every honey will have the same effect on diabetes or wound healing or any other diseases.

So what I would tell is like honey, most, some of the, the honey is, and again, most of the dark color honey is, they have low glycemic index. So as you know, glycemic index is the one that is propagating or increasing the glucose content or in our glucose level in the blood. So low glycemic index food are mostly recommended for these diabetic patients so to control better the glucose levels. So some of the honeies, they have low glycemic index and they can be used safely by the diabetic patients. But most of the honeies, especially light color honeies or grocery stores or honey is, I cannot guarantee any of them to become low glycemic index. And I don't have a measurement. I don't have a technique to measure the glycemic

index. It needs to be done on the animal studies or like on the animal models to see how it is increasing. But I have also several personal anecdotes from my beekeeper friends, which carries those like arm devices. So they do is they consume their own honey and they watch their glucose level from the Bluetooth on their cell phones. And they say that even after two hours, my glucose level is still not high. It's still intolerable levels. So they show or they claim that their honey did not increase their glucose level despite their diabetes. So again, this is a, I don't say heat and miss, but it is a field that, really needs to be researched with well-established clinical and animal studies.

That is really interesting because I could imagine if I were someone who couldn't eat sugar because of diabetes, but yet if I could find a honey that I'm able to eat or sweeten my food with, what a bonus, because first of all, we shouldn't be eating the sugar in the first place. Yes. But that comes up. And again, I just want to caution people, if you're going to try to. try some kind of raw honey and you are diabetic, do that in concert with your practitioner, your medical professional. We're not telling you to go out an experiment, but that's a very

telling anecdote there where someone has a monitoring system. They have that app on their phone and they can see what their blood glucose levels are and see what their reaction is when they take it. Maybe it's a slow release sugar or something. Yeah. A clinical trial can be established on this. So with the people who has the glucose monitoring, and then they consume local honey or grocery store honey, and they see how it is differing, like in a controlled manner. And then can give us an idea. I really hope somebody does that soon.

So it almost feels like we can't move fast enough on a lot of this stuff because there's so much to do. And do you find that there are a lot of other researchers doing what you're doing? Are you collaborating? How's that going? I mean, I'm trying to collaborate with as many scientists as I can. Like, for example, I collaborate with Professor Richard Wilson from University of Houston for pollen DNA analysis. He was one of the pioneers.

I mean, he has dealt out of my informatics studies for the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the honey fraud. And then I also collaborate with Robin definitely for more than a year at Penn State. So we are working on the, you know, the spider-lantern fly honey. And again, I also collaborate with people on different universities, like with Texas A&M with the USDAB research labs. So we also collect samples from different regions as well. So more collaboration is happening. But my understanding is that I'm doing this very actively last four years, I would say, like our three years, I'm collecting honey samples. And also analyzing the honey at UTSA lab.

We are the only lab in the whole country that is analyzing honey is for medicinal potential. So for the antimicrobial anthroxin potential. So that is, again, it's something that we are really proud of that we are doing this. And we are like, again, this is an opportunity that we can do more honey samples. But at the same time, we'd love to see more researchers, more scientists, you know, to get into the field of honey's medicinal potential. And again, we can, maybe you can have a honey. Institute or Honey Research Center in the nation, and then we can promote the local honey, like local U.S. honey, to become the medical grade honey and become a leader in the world

for this purpose. Okay, give me an idea, because I know somebody's going to be mad if I don't ask this question. A court of honey right now in the state of Pennsylvania goes for about $22. If someone had the quality of the honey that could make it through the medical grading and be considered medical grade honey, do we have an idea of what those things would sell for or what the producer would see as far? I realize that the other end is probably going to be expensive. But for the producer, what would medical grade honey earn them? I would say, look at the example of Manuka. So when Manuka was started in 1990s, it was about $20 per kilo, which is about $2.2.

So by early 2000s, like within a decade, so the price has gone all the way up to $2,000 per kilo. So it's about like 100 times more expensive because of the research that was done on Manuka, and it was only medical grade honey that was on the international market. So then the price has been now adjusted. It's about, still, like, if you buy monica from, you know, those wholesale markets like Costco or other places, the price is still pretty high. I mean, it can be 10 to 14 times more expensive compared to the local honey sold in the farmer's market. So this shows the potential, but I don't know how the market will change. I mean, how many products will be introduced and then who will lead the market and then how these, like, how does the FDA will approach this?

These are some unknowns. But it is a road to be walked. It is a road that we need to start walking and then we need to establish it as, because we have a very high potential by the local beekeepers in this country. So we just need to establish the foundation and institution for this and start doing this as a, you know, as the major, as a major goal. Can you basically describe what the best way to harvest or prehist? process honey is that would have the least impact on its quality? So can you come again? I get distracted.

So someone's got an apiary. They want to extract honey from a beehive. What is the best way to maintain its original properties? What's the best way to harvest that honey and have the lowest impact on its value as medicine? I mean, the best way to protect honey is keeping the comb. Because comb is when the bees really make the honey and they seal it, it and it is not processed by anybody else. It is not, you know, safe. And when you need, you know, then you can extract the honey from the comb and use it

within a short amount of time. So that's the best. But again, this is not the ideal. I understand. This is the ideal, but it's very hard to realize this because we need to make like large compounds of these. So in that case, honey is most, should be stored in the glass because glass is more protective, but there is less microplastics in it.

But what we see in the Manuka market, they are all sold in almost black or dark brown containers. So we don't see any monica in glass. We don't see in Manuka in clear containers. So again, this is a kind of a guidance or example that how the honey should be stored and sold to the consumers. Because people may not like the taste of the medical grade honey, like spotted lanternfly honey. like more than 50% of the people hate it. And the reason is, again, it doesn't taste like honey. But Manuka was the same.

People were feeding Manuka to their animal farms. So because Manika didn't like, didn't taste like honey, didn't look like honey, didn't smell like honey. But when you put them into a container, dark container and promoted as a medical honey, then people are eating the honey as a medicine, not as honey in their everyday. So actually, we're going to, I think, I think we're probably going to wrap up. We've covered just about everything there is. Is there anything on your mind that we haven't covered that you would like to share about before we say

goodbye? I think, yeah, we must have covered almost everything. But again, I really would like to thank my students, especially Honey PetFay students, that they are helping me a lot. I mean, to analyze these honeies for their medicinal potential. And again, the best thing that I really enjoy teaching this classes, most of my students are pre-health professionals. So they become future doctors, future physicians or dentists. So I believe this will be a great addition. And I hope this knowledge can be shared to more and more generations or more youth that they can grasp the idea. And so there are beekeepers, average age can also go down. And then we can have like more beekeepers. all around the country looking for or producing medical grade honey.

So I believe this will be a great opportunity for our nation. I agree. And do you want to share what's the next conference that you'll be attending as a presenter? Okay. Actually, this weekend I'm going to Minnesota for the B-Day by the Fundalak University, or maybe I didn't pronounce properly. but I'm also planning to go to EAS this summer. And maybe I should also give the good news that we will be organizing the global epitaphic convention in San Antonio, Texas on November 7 to 11.

So I'll be organizing committee. And then we are organizing this as a One Health and Honeybees. So because One Health is becoming more and more approved concept. So we will be having One Health and Honeybees, the global convention of the epithelapist. So we will have speakers from different parts of the world, and especially from the U.S. as well, like through the American Epitrapy Society. So we will have this conference in San Antonio in the first week of November. Oh, that's fantastic.

Yeah, I'm glad I asked. So for those that are watching or listening, you'll find the links to everything that he's just described down in the video description. and we will update those as the year progresses. So I want to thank you so much for your time. This was very interesting, and I think people are going to get a lot of value out of this interview. So I appreciate it. It's my pleasure.

Thank you for having me. And that concludes another episode of interviews with experts. I hope you learned something new from today's discussion. If you find value in the content I produce, please take a moment and subscribe so you won't miss a single episode. I invite you to visit the video description for updated links to some of the information referenced during the interview. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this has been The Way to Be.