Sugar helps heal wounds
Painful infections like bedsores or any other wound could be cured by simply rubbing sugar, a research shows.
Sugar may be bad for the waistline or a reason for heart attacks but heals wounds effectively.
Moses Murandu, senior lecturer in adult nursing at the Wolverhampton University, grew up in Zimbabwe seeing his father use crushed sugar cane to heal wounds and to reduce pain.
He was surprised when he saw sugar was not used to treat wounds in England.
His 6-month study at Shelly Oak Hospital in Birmingham involved 21 patients whose wounds did not respond to conventional treatment.
The study showed that pouring granulated sugar on bed sores, leg ulcers or amputations before dressing can kill the bacteria that prevents healing and causes chronic pain.
Bacteria need water to survive. What sugar does is it draws water from the wound into the dressing.
This approach could save billions of dollars for countries funding healthcare.
Treating wounds with sugar has been a wive’s tale for a number of years, but this is the first time that medical evidence has proven that it works.
So next time you have a wound that is not healing, ask your doctor if a dressing using sugar would be beneficial. Avoid dressing the wound with sugar yourself.
Dr. Ajay Sati.
