Sunday, 8 November 2009
Does Sugar on a Wound Help it Heal Faster?
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Rubbing sugar into wounds could cure painful infections including bedsores, research shows. The traditional African remedy is being trialled in British hospitals after a study led by a senior nurse raised in Zimbabwe.
According to Moses Murandu, sugar protects wounds from infection and promotes faster healing. As a child he watched his father put crushed sugar cane on villagers' wounds and grew up thinking it was a widely used treatment.
When he moved to England he was surprised to find doctors did not use it.
His six-month study involved 21 patients at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham whose wounds had not responded to conventional treatment.
It showed that pouring granulated sugar on to bed sores, leg ulcers or amputations before dressing can kill the bacteria that prevents healing and causes chronic pain.
Bacteria need water to survive but sugar draws water from the wound into the dressing.
Mr Murandu, 43, believes the technique, which was passed down from his great-grandfather, could save the NHS billions.
'The village where I grew up was very small and we didn't have a great deal of medicine available to us,' he said.
'Doctors here tend to forget the traditional medicines that have been working for thousands of years.'
Bosses at the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham have been so impressed that he has been awarded £25,000 to treat up to 100 more patients with sugar.
My hat goes off to Mr. Murandu for re-introducing modern British medicine to age old medicinal practices.
The United States knew about sugar's bacterial growth inhibition properties as far back as 1983 when the NIH conducted a study with positive results (I say 1983 if you go by the basis that it takes a government study to make a determination official...sic).
Now why do you think our modern, science based medicine hasn't used this to combat infections? Maybe it's not sciency (awk!) enough? or, maybe their just ain't enough money in sugar... (awk! awk!)
It was nice to note that the guys over at Science-Based Medicine Blog were talking about this and collodial silver, which as a chemist I've always known of its use as an antiseptic and was aware of its other medicinal properties.
Perhaps it's time to take a good look at ancient medicine...
Ya think?
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