Can Cancer Patients Eat Honey or Use Honey as a Medicinal Ingredient?

Many cancer patients, having listened to certain experts' claim that cancer patients should avoid sweets, dare not take honey and even feel nervous when honey is used medicinally.

This is a harmful prejudice. Apart from patients allergic to honey—a small number are allergic—other cancer patients suffer no obvious harm from eating honey or using it as a medicine. Not only that, but when some famous veteran TCM physicians prescribe decoctions for cancer patients, they specifically instruct the patient to add an appropriate amount of honey to the decoction to improve the taste, enhance the patient's medication experience, strengthen the patient's constitution, and protect liver function.

For example, in the cancer case reports published by the late famous TCM physician Professor Zhang Mengnong of Hubei Province, essentially every patient's decoction included 60 g of honey (Old Master Zhang's formulas were usually taken over two days, so 30 g of honey per day). After taking them, the patients' tumors not only did not progress but many were cured. This shows that the claim that cancer patients cannot take honey is unreliable.

Using honey medicinally has many benefits. First, cancer patients must take medicine over the long term; if they take decoctions, long-term use damages the spleen and stomach, lowering appetite. This is especially true of childhood cancer patients, who are very unwilling to take decoctions. Adding an appropriate amount of honey to these decoctions markedly improves the taste of the herbs, making medication less miserable.

Moreover, honey protects the liver: it promotes liver-cell regeneration. Many Chinese herbs have some hepatotoxicity, and taking honey can reduce the liver damage caused by the herbs. Traditional TCM has always held that honey has a detoxifying action; many herbs are processed with honey, such as the common Zhi Gan Cao (honey-fried licorice) and Zhi Ma Huang (honey-fried ephedra), both processed with honey as an auxiliary material. The herb Chuan Wu (Aconiti Radix) is highly toxic, so when it is used medicinally it is usually decocted together with honey; after being decocted with honey, Chuan Wu's toxicity is greatly reduced.

Honey also has antitumor effects. In the "Honey" entry of the Zhongyao Da Cidian (Great Dictionary of Chinese Materia Medica), the seventh point in the pharmacological explanation explicitly states that honey can markedly slow tumor growth, inhibit tumor metastasis, and prolong the survival of experimental rats; its antitumor effect in mice is similar. Using honey alone also has some efficacy against animal tumors, so there is evidence that honey has antitumor action.

Even for diabetic patients, honey does more good than harm. Modern pharmacology confirms that honey lowers blood glucose in both normal people and diabetics, although there are also reports of a transient rise in blood glucose; the rise is caused by taking too much honey. The acetylcholine in honey lowers blood glucose, while the glucose in honey raises it; thus a small amount of honey lowers blood glucose, while a large amount raises it.

In addition, honey is both an excellent moistening laxative and an excellent gentle antidiarrheal. For constipated patients, honey moistens the intestines and moves the stool; for diarrheal patients, honey gently settles the diarrhea. Thus honey is beneficial even for patients with abnormal bowel habits.

Honey is also a tonic that raises the patient's strength and improves their state of survival. TCM holds that honey supplements the center, stops cough, moistens dryness, and detoxifies; it is indicated for epigastric deficiency pain, lung-dryness cough, intestinal-dryness constipation, sores and ulcers, rubella, burns, and chapped hands and feet. In TCM treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers, honey, Chen Pi (Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium), and Gan Cao (Glycyrrhizae Radix) may be used together.

I hope readers who have been influenced by the various claims that cancer patients cannot eat honey will seriously consult authoritative sources, not listen to prejudices, and not keep their distance from honey out of reverence mixed with fear.