NATURAL HONEY ACCELERATES HEALING OF INDOMETHACIN-INDUCED ANTRAL ULCERS IN RATS

Objective: To evaluate the healing properties of natural honey on expe rimentally induced antral ulcers in refed rats. Setting: Department of Medical Pharmacology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riya dh, Saudi Arabia. Materials and methods: Antral ulcers were induced by subcutaneous injection of a single dose of indomethacin (20 mg/kg) in refed rats and the effects of oral treatment with honey (0.156 and 0. 312 g/kg) or sucralfate (250 and 500 mg/kg) twice daily on the time-co urse of healing of antral ulcers were investigated. Sucralfate was use d as a reference drug. Treatment with honey or sucralfate was started 24 h after indomethacin administration and rats were killed 3, 5, 10 a nd 15 days after indomethacin to evaluate gastric lesions. Results: Co mpared with controls, both honey and sucralfate significantly accelera ted healing of antral ulcers. Thus, there were 61-70% and 51-64% more healings than the corresponding controls after 9-14 days treatment wit h highest doses of honey and sucralfate, respectively. Furthermore, th e healing of ulcers was also reflected by the absence of diarrhoea and regaining of body weight of rats. Conclusion: These results suggest t hat honey has curative properties for healing of antral ulcers and may be used like sucralfate in the management of peptic ulcer diseases. H owever, further biochemical, histopathological and clinical studies ar e required to establish the therapeutic potentialities of honey in mod ern medicine.