Scientists Discover New Anti-Inflammatory Components in Honey

A vendor pours honey at his shop in Sanaa, Yemen July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
A vendor pours honey at his shop in Sanaa, Yemen July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
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Scientists Discover New Anti-Inflammatory Components in Honey

A vendor pours honey at his shop in Sanaa, Yemen July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
A vendor pours honey at his shop in Sanaa, Yemen July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Sugars make up about 95 percent of honey, explaining how the substance became synonymous with sweetness and a food staple. But people have also historically used honey as an ointment, hinting at anti-inflammatory properties that researchers are now investigating.

Some of that research suggests honey can act on a protein called NLRP3, which triggers beneficial inflammation during immune responses but has also been implicated in diabetes, Alzheimer's, and other diseases.

A multidisciplinary team of Nebraska researchers, led by Jiujiu Yu, went searching for overlooked components of honey that could help explain its anti-inflammatory activity. The findings were published in the latest issue of the journal Extracellular Vesicles.

According to a report published on the university's website, when the researchers did their search, they found so-called extracellular vesicles: tiny membrane-protected particles that often carry proteins, ribonucleic acids and other biomolecules from one cell to another and have been identified in many foods. Their size ranges between 30 and 100 nanometers.

The honey-housed vesicles contained 142 proteins from plants and 82 from honey bees. To test whether the vesicles themselves help combat inflammation, the team placed them alongside white blood cells that produce the inflammation, then kick-started inflammatory processes. They found that the vesicles substantially reduced the production and secretion of multiple inflammation-causing proteins, along with the inflammation-related death of certain cells. And when the team injected mice with the vesicles, it found that the nanoparticles partly alleviated both inflammation and drug-induced liver injury.

The researchers identified microribonucleic acids, or microRNAs, as the main anti-inflammatory cargo within the vesicles, even pinpointing a particular microRNA most responsible for the effects. Further studies would need to establish whether and how vesicles consumed via honey actually curb inflammation in people, the researchers said. Studying how they interact with bacteria in the human gut could be a worthwhile starting point.



Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland, Estonia Hit by Outage

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
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Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland, Estonia Hit by Outage

Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)

A power cable linking Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea suffered an outage, prompting an investigation, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Wednesday.

Writing on X, Orpo said that power transmission through the Estlink-2 cable stopped Wednesday and that authorities were “investigating the matter.” He said the interruption would not affect electricity supplies in Finland, according to The AP.

Estonian network operator Elering said there was enough spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side, public broadcaster ERR said on its website.

Authorities have been on edge about undersea infrastructure in the Baltic. Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed in November.

Germany's defense minister said officials had to assume the incident was “sabotage," but without providing evidence or saying who might have been responsible. The remark came during a speech in which he discussed hybrid warfare threats from Russia.

The Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that once brought natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Authorities have termed it sabotage and launched criminal probes.

The Estlink-2 cable was down for much of this year to repair damage from a short circuit that may have been caused by the cable's complex positioning, ERR reported.