Burns healed up to four days faster when the golden syrup was applied. (CBC)

Putting honey on burns may help the wound heal faster, a review suggests.

Ancient Egyptian surgical texts recommended using honey on wounds, and some animal studies and trials suggest the sweet solution may speed up healing.

In Wednesday's issue of the Cochrane Library, nurse Andrew Jull of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues reviewed 19 studies involving more than 2,500 participants to evaluate the value of honey in medical practice. The trials were generally small with less than 100 participants each.

When honey was applied in mild to moderate superficial and partial thickness burns that damage blood vessels and nerves, the wounds healed up to four days faster, the researchers reported.

But in chronic wounds, adding honey to compression bandages did not significantly increase healing in venous leg ulcers after 12 weeks.

"The evidence currently does not support the use of honey on acute wounds such as abrasions and lacerations or on minor, uncomplicated wounds left to heal …following surgery," Jull said in a release.

For now, "health services should refrain from providing honey dressing for routine use," Jull said, noting that the findings should be viewed with caution. One researcher performed many of the burn studies, and those results need to be reproduced by others, he added.

"Topical honey is cheaper than other interventions, notably oral antibiotics, which are often used and may have other deleterious side-effects," said Dr. Jennifer Eddy, a University of Wisconsin researcher who is studying whether honey helps diabetic foot ulcers.

Currently, people often use honey when the wound does not heal after standard therapies, or if they are interested in alternative medicine, Eddy said.

The journal said authors of the review included researchers in one of the leg ulcer studies and that the author's research unit received a small cash contribution from a manufacturer of honey dressings.

Reconsider use of silver cream for burns: researchers

A second study appearing in the same issue concluded that a cream that doctors commonly use on burns may delay healing.

Silver sulphadiazine is often used with gauze to prevent infections.

When Jason Wasiak of the Victoria Adult Burns Service at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and his co-authors reviewed 26 randomized controlled trials, they concluded there was no evidence to support the use of silver sulphadiazine and its use should be reconsidered.

"The use of silver sulphadiazine (SSD) as a comparator on burn wounds for the full duration of treatment needs to be reconsidered, as a number of studies showed delays in time to wound healing and increased number of dressing applications in patients treated with SSD dressings," the study's authors wrote.

Evidence from small trials, many with poorer methods, suggested burns may be managed better with films and gels, the journal's editors said.