Honey May Fight Ageing

September 15th, 2007

LONDON: Worried over ageing? Just start taking a spoonful of honey every day.

Yes, according to scientists, honey could help counter the effects of ageing and decrease anxiety, the Daily Mail reported here on Friday. “Diets sweetened with honey may be beneficial in decreasing anxiety and improving memory during ageing,” said Nicola Starkey of the University of Waikato in New Zealand.

According to her, this could be due to the antioxidant properties of honey. In fact, Starkey and Lynne Chepulis of the same university came to the conclusion after they conducted their tests on rodents.

They raised them on diets of 10% honey, 8% sucrose or no sugar at all for a year. The honey-fed rats spent almost twice as much time in the open sections of a maze then sucrose-fed rats, suggesting they were less anxious. They were also more likely to enter novel sections of the maze, suggesting they knew where they had better spatial memory.

Source:The Times Of India