Heal Your Wounds the Sweet Way

By Dr. Al Sears

Everybody loves sugar. And here’s another reason to keep it in your cupboard.

Sugar can heal your cuts, scrapes, burns, and even large wounds without leaving a scar. It kills germs and repairs tissue better than any antiseptic or disinfectant on the market.¹

Sugar may just be the first antiseptic in history. People have written about its miraculous properties for over 4,000 years, since early Egyptian times. But it fell out of favor once antibiotics became available.

I had firsthand experience during my first trip to the Amazon. When you’re fighting your way through dense jungle, there isn’t a day you’re not cut up, scraped, or covered with bug bites. Infection sets in quickly in the tropics. And a cut on my arm was becoming infected.

My guide carried small packets of sugar with him at all times. I thought it was to sweeten his tea. But when we stopped to rest, he applied a sugar paste to the cut on my arm and covered it with gauze.

Back then I was skeptical. But he assured me it was strong, native medicine and repeated the process each time we stopped. Within a day or two, the cut was healed – and no scar remained.

Since that time, I’ve seen sugar used to heal throughout my travels to Africa and Asia. Other countries such as Australia and New Zealand use honey instead of sugar.

Sugar and honey both contain high levels of glucose, the kind of sugar your body uses for energy. Both are almost equal in their ability to heal, with honey taking a slight lead.²

I read an interesting review of seven studies of 264 patients treated with honey. Honey produced better outcomes, shorter healing time, and virtually no infection.³

After seven days, 58 percent of patients were healed with honey versus 19% with conventional antibiotics and unconventional treatments such as silver, amniotic membrane, and potato peelings. And 85 percent of patients treated with honey had the infection in their wound vanish compared to 30% with the other treatments.

After 21 days, 99 percent of patients were healed with honey versus 75% with other treatments. Only one study gave the infection rate at 21 days. It was 96 percent for honey versus 76% for a silver treatment.

Sugar and honey prevent scarring to the extent it heals ulcers and burns without the need for skin grafts. Scientists theorize sugar and honey encourage the production of hyaluronic acid (HA), while it prevents stiff, stringy collagen from forming.

HA fills out your skin by absorbing 3,000 times its weight of water. At the same time, sugar and honey prevent the buildup of the stringy kind of collagen that creates scar tissue. Instead, it forms a different type. A delicate, mesh-like collagen structure that brings the skin’s surface back to normal and allows it to heal.^4,5

The next time you have a cut, scrape, burn, or open infection, try using sugar or honey:

1. Make a paste using filtered water and sugar, or use straight honey.

2. Apply to your wound and cover with gauze or a Band-Aid.

3. Change the dressing throughout the day to prevent the gauze from sticking to the wound.

Al Sears, MD

Sources

1 Archer, HG, et al. “A controlled model of moist wound healing: comparison between semi-permeable film, antiseptics and sugar paste.” J-Exp-Pathol-(Oxford). 1990 Apr; 71(2): 155-70.
2 Mphande AN, Killowe C, et al. “Effects of honey and sugar dressings on wound healing.” J Wound Care. 2007 Jul;16(7):317-9.
3 Moore, O., et al. “Systematic review of the use of honey as a wound dressing.” BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2001; 1:2.
4 McPherson, J.M., Piez, K.A. “Collagen in dermal wound repair.” In: Clark, R.A.F., Henson, P.M. The Molecular and Cellular Biology of Wound Repair. New York: Plenum Press, 1988.
5 “Why do some cavity wounds treated with honey or sugar paste heal without scarring?” Woundcare Journal 2002; 11(2).

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