**6. Last but not least: Honey**

Honey has been used for the treatment of wounds since ancient times and its medicinal use is sanctioned by the Bible, Torah and Koran (Namias N., 2003). Johnson et al. conducted a prospective trial of topical honey versus topical Mupirocin ointment for the prevention of dialysis catheter associated infection. In a two year study period the authors enrolled 101 patients with tunneled dialysis catheters in their hospital based dialysis unit. Honey was applied three times a week to the dialysis catheter exit site in 51 patients while mupirocin ointment was used in 50 patients. No exit site infections were observed in either group and no difference in the rate of catheter associated bacteremia could be demonstrated. The cost of the Australian grown medicinal honey that the authors used was equivalent to mupirocin. As the authors noted, it is interesting that at the time of the study about 2% of staphylococcal isolates in their hospital were resistant to mupirocin while no bacterial resistance to honey has yet been reported despite millennia of being around (Johnson D.W. et al., 2005).
