Abstract—Honey is recently being recognized as a natural substance that lowers blood glucose levels in patients with diabetes. To explain this surprising finding, it is hypothesized that the fructose and oligosaccharides present in honey might in some way contribute to the observed hypoglycemic effect. Honey administration was found to increase serum levels of insulin while it reduced serum concentrations of glucose and fructosamine in diabetic rats. Because patients with diabetes also consume various kinds of saccharides through foods, it has come to attention if honey, which also contains glucose, is as effective as sugar in regulating blood glucose levels and blood lipid levels. Therefore, the research utilized Acacia honey and Manuka honey and observed if there is any discrepancy on their effects on diabetes. Acacia honey is one of the most abundantly provided kinds of honey in South Korea and some other Asian counterparts while Manuka honey is commonly known as a functional food effective for diabetes. Originally designed in order to find out if honey has actual effects on regulating blood glucose levels and blood lipid levels, the experiment did not lead to a statistically significant result when comparing the effects of honey with those of the control group. Excluding the control group, however, the three other groups each demonstrated different changes on regulating the blood glucose levels. Hence the results were analyzed excluding the control group, and it was found that Acacia honey had the most positive effect on diabetes by lowering blood glucose levels among the three other groups: Acacia honey, Manuka honey, and sugar.
 

Index Terms—honey, diabetes, SD rats, HDL-C

Cite: Wonsang Gong, Seoyeon Shin, Seongmin Choi, Minjeong Kim, and Hojin Kim, "Assessing the Efficacy of Honey in Diabetes Using SD Rats: By Comparing Acacia Honey, Manuka Honey, and Sugar," International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 147-150, December 2016. doi: 10.18178/ijfe.2.2.147-150