> Is eating local honey for allergy relief just an old wives' tale? Or can
> the sweet relief allergy sufferers seek from their nonstop miserable
> "cold" symptoms be as simple as eating two teaspoons of honey a day?...

Ragweed is the single most important plant for hayfever allergies in 
the USA.  It is widespread across the country and most importantly a 
wind pollinated plant.  

Very little if any ragweed pollen makes it into honey and due the 
plant's widespread nature, what little ragweed pollen may be found in 
honey, will be found nationwide.

Honey is rarely produced from wind pollinated plants, (with the 
exception of a few plants with extra floral nectaries - sugar cane is 
one that springs to mind) and the pollen found in honey is almost 
exclusively (greater than 99%) from insect pollinated plants.  These 
pollens are not a cause of hayfever allergies because they do not 
become windborne and therefore cannot be inhaled.

Wind pollinated plants have a different strategy for dispersal to 
insect pollinated plants.  The first produce vast quantities of of 
extremely small light pollen grains with almost no protein or fat 
content of any value to insects. Insect pollinated plants produce 
[realtively] much fewer, larger pollen grains that have significant 
levels of protein and fats that do provide a nutrional source for 
insects (and other animals). i.e. their chemical makeup is completely 
different.

If local honey is of benefit to alergy sufferers, then the supposed 
mechanism of being exposed to small quantities of the target allergen 
in the honey, seems to be logically flawed - particularly when 
ragweed is the chief cause and so widespread.

Does anyone have another mechanism in mind that could be 
explored/promoted, or some evidence that would add weight to the 
existing theory?

On that note, comb honey is often put forward as a better candidate 
than extracted honey, but from our studies, comb honey usually has 
significantly less pollen than [unfiltered] extracted honey - by a 
factor of about 10 times.  If comb honey is actually providing relief 
from allergens, this would indeed suggest there is another mechanism 
at play.

Regards,
Peter Bray_________________________________________________________
Airborne Honey Ltd., Pennington St, PO Box 28, Leeston, 
New Zealand Fax 64-3-324-3236,  Phone 64-3-324-3569  
http://www.airborne.co.nz  [log in to unmask]

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