The Intestinal Fate of Phenolic Substances in Honey: Metabolism by Gut Microbiota, Regulation of Bioavailability, and Its Prebiotic Effects on Host Health

This review systematically summarizes the metabolic transformation patterns, bioavailability regulation mechanisms, and multi-target host health effects of honey phenolic compounds under the action of gut microbiota, based on literature from 1996 to 2026. It focuses on elucidating the “high efficacy in vitro, low exposure in vivo” paradox, the three-step cascade metabolic pathway (deglycosylation, C-ring cleavage, and reduction with secondary transformation), and the synergistic prebiotic effects of “oligosaccharides plus phenolics.” Current evidence indicates that the health benefits of honey are largely derived from microbiota-derived small-molecule metabolites rather than from the parent compounds, and these metabolites exert regulatory effects via the gut–liver, gut–brain, gut–immune, and gut–fat axes. However, the vast majority of evidence comes from in vitro fermentation, animal models, or ex vivo fecal cultures, with a severe shortage of high-quality human intervention studies, thereby limiting causal inference. Therefore, this review proposes a shift in honey quality evaluation from traditional qualitative chemical composition-based assessment toward precision functional evaluation based on metabolite profiles, and emphasizes the urgent need to establish standardized metabolite-based quality markers, develop enterotype-based stratified nutrition strategies, and conduct rigorous randomized controlled trials, so as to promote the transformation of honey from a traditional food into a targeted dietary intervention agent.