You may find this surprising, but sugar could be the new miracle drug in your pantry. Doctors are finding that this substance can help to speed the healing of wounds, burns and skin ulcers. Moreover, it is safe, cheap, easy to get and to use.
In Argentina, scientists at the University of Buenos Aires packed the infected wounds of 120 patients with ordinary granulated sugar and found in 99 percent of the cases that the bacterial infections cleared in nine day to seventeen weeks. In the United States, doctors at the Delta Medical Center in Greenville, Mississippi, have reported similar success in a five-year study involving 605 patients suffering from wounds, skin ulcers, and burns.
The Greenville doctors say the therapy, a combination of sugar and povidone-iodine, a mild-anti-infective agent, outperforms all other products for wound care and is the combination we depend most upon for wound, burn or ulcer treatment. They found that wounds so treated healed faster than with alternative standard therapy and with little or no scarring. The need for antibiotics was reduced, as was the reliance on painkillers dressing can simply be washed off with water.
Sugar works its wonders in several ways. It is naturally antibacterial, inhibiting the growth of microorganisms. It soaks up moisture and thus helps reduce the swelling common to injured tissues. Sugar may also provide the nourishment or stimulus for tissue to regenerate.
