Sugar in Wound Healing

Methods to heal wounds have been studied for the past four or five millennia. Surgery’s earliest known document on the care of wounds is The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, dated around 1700 BC, which describes the treatment of a number of difficult wounds encountered on the battlefields of Egypt.  

Since then, our knowledge of the physiology of wound healing has been elucidated, but timely and efficient wound healing has remained somewhat elusive, especially in areas where technology and modern wound care supplies are limited.  The use of sugar for wound healing is one of the earliest known methods. In premodern times, the idea that sugar can facilitate the healing of wounds has been documented.

In modern times, the use of sugar as a general treatment for the healing of wounds has received much attention in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. These attributes make the use of sugar an attractive candidate for the healing of wounds, especially in economically challenged areas. Moreover, certain types of wounds such as chronic wounds may benefit from a more cost-effective method of wound healing. The use of sugar to heal diabetic ulcers is such an example.

Although Latin America, Europe, and Asia have held an interest in using sugar for wound healing, its use has not been widely practiced in the United States. Direct instillation of sugar in the wound apparently exerts a local osmotic effect that promotes granulation tissue formation, reduces edema in wounds, lowers wound pH thereby enhancing the bacteriostatic effect, promotes dilation of small blood vessels, promotes bacterial lysis, and inhibits bacterial growth by lowering the water activity available that is required for the growth of most bacterial organisms.  This technique has been employed in the treatment of burns, postoperative wounds, mediastinitis, diabetic ulcers, and a variety of other wounds.

PLB

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html