Wednesday, September 25, 2013

How to Heal Scars Faster with Food

Scars come from numerous sources including surgery, accidents and acne. Regardless of the cause, one thing most people with scars have in common is a desire to remove them as fast as possible. While creams and laser treatments for scars abound, there is still one simple yet overlooked way to hasten the healing process of wounds. It's called "proper tissue repair nutrition".

Numerous studies on wound repair rates have exposed the simple dietary adjustments that can expedite the renewal of damaged skin tissue and allow scars to heal faster.

Substitute high-fat foods with reduced fat alternatives

Consuming high-fat foods like chips, cake, fried chicken, fries and hamburgers could actually slow wound healing.

This past December researchers tested the wound healing rates of rats fed a high-fat diet to rats fed a control diet and released their findings in the British Journal of Nutrition. All the rats received puncture wounds that were examined three weeks later. The investigators noted the rats on the high-fat diet had higher rates of inflammation, delayed cell repair, reduced collagen production and impaired blood synthesis as compared to the control rats.

Instead of consuming high-fat foods, try enjoying chicken, fries and beef prepared by baking, not frying. Also, you can mitigate the negative wound healing effects of a high-fat diet by slashing your consumption of fatty foods in half.

Try these foods substitutions to reduce a high-fat diet

Fried chicken --- >Baked chicken

Hamburgers ---- >Veggie burgers, turkey burgers, baked beans

French fries & chips --- > Baked potatoes, carrot sticks, toasted wheat bread

Cakes, donuts, high-fat desserts --- > Fresh fruits like apples, oranges and grapes combined with low-fat yogurt

How important is the quality of your food intake to wound repair?

A study issued in Dermatologic Surgery tackled this question when it compared the diets of elderly patients with chronic leg ulcers to patients who did not experience chronic wounds.

The researchers found that elderly patients with chronic leg ulcers have low levels of vitamins A and E, carotenes, and zinc compared to the patients not predisposed to chronic wounds. Based on these findings, the examiners concluded that nutritional deficiencies or increased consumption of nutritional elements in these patients may influence wound healing rates.

Sources of wound repairing foods

Vitamin A

Carrots, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, apricots, spinach

Vitamin E

Sunflower oil, sunflower seeds, walnuts, shrimp

Carotenes

Red and yellow peppers, collards, mustard greens, bok choy, cabbage, kale, mango, orange, onions, carrots, apricots (dark green and dark yellow fruits and vegetables)

Zinc

Yogurt, green peas, beef steak, oysters, black beans, crabmeat

Now, in addition to visiting the local pharmacy for scar treatments, you can now include a stroll down the produce aisle of you local grocery store for some supplemental wound healing foods.

Sources:

Nascimento, Adriana P. & Andréa M. A. Costa. Overweight induced by high-fat diet delays rat cutaneous wound healing. British Journal of Nutrition, Volume 96, Number 6, December 2006, pp. 1069-1077(9).

Rojas A.I.; Phillips T.J. Patients with Chronic Leg Ulcers Show Diminished Levels of Vitamins A and E, Carotenes, and Zinc. Dermatologic Surgery, Volume 25, Number 8, August 1999, pp. 601-604(4).








Naweko Nicole Dial San-Joyz founded Noixia, a San Diego based research firm dedicated to helping people intelligently, safely and affordably enhance their image by offering custom skin solutions to people with acne scars [www.Noixia.com] on the face and body. San-Joyz She has appeared on radio stations, in newspapers and on TV shows across the United States promoting beauty through health consciousness. Anyone seeking to enhance their image and remove acne scarring [www.Noixia.com] can find custom, clinically proven solutions at Noixia.com.

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