Prevention of ammonia-induced gastric lesions in rats by natural honey

Purpose: Honey is widely used all over the world in complementary and alternative medicine in various disorders, including gastrointestinal lesions. Unfortunately, the therapeutic potential of honey has so far been neglected in modern medicine owing to a lack of systematic scientific studies. Recent studies using different models of experimentally induced acute and chronic gastric lesions in rats have demonstrated the gastric protection effects and molecular mechanisms of honey. As ammonia is highly cytotoxic, its production by urease of Helicobacter pylori makes it an important aggressive factor in mucosal injury. The present work was undertaken to evaluate potential gastric protection by honey and its possible mechanism(s) against ammonia‐induced gastric lesions in rats.Materials and Methods: Twenty‐four hour fasted rats were given 1 ml of ammonium hydroxide 1% intragastrically and were killed 1 hour later under deep ether anaesthesia. The gastric lesion index was calculated according to the method of T...