Honey: Overview

The healing properties of honey have made it a popular natural remedy. According to reports, it contains over 200 different chemicals. Fructose and glucose make up the bulk of honey, but it also includes fructo-oligosaccharides, many enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. Depending on the plants that bees feed on, honey can have a wide range of compositions. A wide variety of substances can be found in honey, including flavonoids, phenolic acids, ascorbic acid, tocopherols, catalase, superoxide dismutase, reduced glutathione, Maillard reaction products, and peptides. Nearly all honey naturally occurs and contains these substances. An antioxidant effect is produced by a synergistic interaction between most of these compounds. Although sugar and water comprise most of the natural honey, it also includes over 200 other components, such as enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. Nearly all of the honey’s dry weight is sugar. Honey is mainly composed of fructose (32.56–32.8%) and glucose (28.56–31.3%), the two most abundant sugars in the fruit, accounting for 85–95% of the total sugars absorbed by the body. Maltose, sucrose, isomaltose, turanose, nigerose, melibiose, panose, maltotriose, and melezitose are among the other sugars that fall under the disaccharide category. The presence of a few oligosaccharides is also noted. As probiotic agents, the fructo-oligosaccharides found in honey range from 4% to 5%.