Honey/ Manuka Honey / Nutrition Research Assignment

Honey/ Manuka Honey / Nutrition
Name
Institution
Date
Manuka honey is mainly found in New Zealand and is derived from the manuka plants, and it is thought to have unique anti-microbial properties compared to other types of honey. The strong anti-microbial activity of honey makes this option better compared to commercial honey, as it contains methylglyoxal (MGO) thought to improve the anti-microbial profile (Mavric, Wittmann, Barth & Henle, 2008). Typically, manuka honey is unprocessed meaning that it retains many of the nutrients compared to processed honey, but raw honey is neither filtered nor heated. Manuka honey has been approved for medical use and it can be eaten or applied to infection, while it may have more nutrients that honey.
Honey and sugar both contain glucose and fructose, but then the molecules are separate in honey and bound together in sugar (Roth, 2013). Since honey is a monosaccharide, digestion is faster where there is glucose and fructose, while sugar contains sucrose that needs to be broken into separate glucose and fructose molecules. There is no need for enzyme digestion for fructose and glucose that are separate, and when they are in the small bowel they are absorbed similar to digested sucrose. However, the fructose needs to be first converted into glucose to meet the energy needs, and reducing sugar intake improves digestion. Lowering the blood sugar level is necessary for anti aging purposes, and high blood sugar levels are associated with increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and free radical formation.
The absorption of monosaccharides, glucose and fructose occurs in the human tract system, with glucose being a product of digesting sucrose (Roth, 2013). Sugar digestion begins in the small bowel where there are digestive enzymes that break down the sucrose. For honey there are higher glucose levels, easy digestion for the simple carbohydrate. Fructose is obtained from sucrose digestion and as the glucose concentration increases, so does the rate of absorption. Since sugar has sucrose with both the glucose and fructose unit, this has to be broken down to the single-sugar unit. Then the cells lining the guts absorb the fructose and glucose units, and once they enter the bloodstream the glucose molecules move to different organs and then supply the cells with energy. The glucose and fructose molecules from honey are absorbed in a similar manner to those of sugar, and the fructose from sucrose is converted into glucose in the liver or the small intestine. Gluco...