Fingers cut and put in the mouth, 42-year-old man amputated, such people beware!

Doraemon has almighty pocket, and we humans have almighty saliva that can not only be used to count money, wipe glass, stick envelopes, organize hair, and even use it to disinfect and clean wounds...

Until now, many people have cut a small cut in their fingers and will still subconsciously put it in their mouths first. Some parents, seeing that the child has broken the skin, will also put their fingers in their mouths to dip it, and then wipe it for the child.

This instinctive response is really amazing.

Image source: Stand Cool Helo

Friends who have chased "Animal World" will definitely have the impression that injured animals, whether predators or predators, will find a safe place to lick their wounds.

So the question arises: Is it possible that the animals' licking behavior is speeding up wound healing with saliva?

(Source: giphy)

It's possible!

First of all, the act of licking the wound can take away some of the larger pollutants, which is a debridement measure.

Second, scientists have studied the saliva of mice and discovered a protein called "nerve growth factor (NGF)" [1]. They compared the length of healing time of wounds on mice, and wounds stained with this protein healed twice faster than those that did not.

Is there a similar ingredient in our human saliva?

We have both lysozymes that can deal with bacteria [2] and growth factors that promote wound healing [3].

However, do these ingredients in the saliva work for the skin to heal?

This wonderful idea has also been practiced by scientists. They collected and treated human saliva and conducted studies on human wounds, and the results showed that some of the "core weapons" in saliva do have the potential to stimulate the closure of skin wounds [3]!

If human beings can thoroughly study these "core weapons", they may be able to achieve milestone breakthroughs in drug development and surgery (autologous transplantation) [3].

Since saliva can help wounds heal, why do we still need iodophors, red potions, and Band-Aids? Isn't it all over with saliva?!

No, no, no, research is research after all, and the practical application in life is still far from it.

On the one hand, the effect of putting aside the dosage is nonsense, on the other hand, applying the wound with saliva may be riskier than the benefit.

The saliva that scientists studied had already sterilized the saliva before doing the experiment.

Saliva this thing, we swallow every day in the stomach, why do we have to sterilize it?

Because saliva is the base camp of bacteria.

The reason why there are bacteriostatic components in saliva is not to comprehensively strangle bacteria in the mouth, but to control the total amount of flora and achieve ecological balance [4].

The mouth is in great need of bacteria these "working boys", they are a good helper for us to break down carbohydrates (food brought) [4].

But the skin environment and the oral environment are very different, and applying saliva with a lot of bacteria to the wounded skin is equivalent to creating conditions for infection.

In fact, the progress of human society and the development of modern medicine are aimed at making everyone stop using the primitive means that only existed in "Animal World". Modern society is full of pharmacies, a few dollars of potion, a few dollars of sterile dressings, not fragrant?

Applying a wound with saliva instead of a disinfectant can have serious consequences.

Friends who own cats and dogs are well aware that after sterilizing the hairy children, they must wear Elizabethan rings, one is not to let them tear the sutures, and the other is to prevent them from instinctively licking the wound.

Because in their saliva, staphylococcus may be present, a highly destructive bacterium that can invade the bloodstream with the help of wounds [5].

Let's take another example of a human being.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, a 42-year-old man with type 1 diabetes licked his bleeding finger during a minor cycling accident, resulting in a finger infection with Akenza bacteria colonized in the mouth and an amputated thumb.

Although these cases are extreme, they are all real, and things related to safety and health are not afraid of ten thousand, just in case.

So if your family and elders use saliva to disinfect the wound, please stop him seriously and forward this article to him (I believe you can also see it, and forwarding this sentence is the point).

"Animal World" is good, but don't imitate it!

By the way, there are so many bacteria, can we still swallow with confidence?

OK!

First of all, pharyngeal saliva is originally a measure to control the total number of bacteria, which can roll away some bacteria adhering to the oral mucosa and the surface of the teeth. Secondly, the saliva we swallow will flow into the stomach, and most microorganisms cannot survive in the stomach acid environment [7], rest assured!

Review expert: Yang Serfei | deputy chief physician and associate professor of the Department of Stomatology, PLA General Hospital

bibliography

[1] Li AK, Koroly MJ, Schattenkerk ME, Malt RA, Young M. Nerve growth factor: acceleration of the rate of wound healing in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1980 Jul;77(7):4379-81. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.7.4379. PMID: 6933491; PMCID: PMC349838.

[2] Fábián TK, Hermann P, Beck A, Fejérdy P, Fábián G. Salivary defense proteins: their network and role in innate and acquired oral immunity. Int J Mol Sci. 2012;13(4):4295-4320. doi:10.3390/ijms13044295

[3] Rodrigues Neves C, Buskermolen J, Roffel S, et al. Human saliva stimulates skin and oral wound healing in vitro. J Tissue Eng Regen Med. 2019;13(6):1079-1092. doi:10.1002/term.2865

[4] AMA Wertz PW, de Szalay S. Innate Antimicrobial Defense of Skin and Oral Mucosa. Antibiotics (Basel). 2020;9(4):159. Published 2020 Apr 3. doi:10.3390/antibiotics9040159

[5] Shumaker AK, Angus JC, Coyner KS, Loeffler DG, Rankin SC, Lewis TP (October 2008). "Microbiological and histopathological features of canine acral lick dermatitis". Vet. Dermatol. 19 (5): 288–98. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3164.2008.00693.x.

[6] Weil HP, Fischer-Brügge U, Koch P (April 2002). "Potential hazard of wound licking" (PDF). N. Engl. J. Med. 346 (17): 1336. doi:10.1056/NEJM200204253461721. PMID 11973376.

[7] Sgambato D, Miranda A, Romano L, Romano M. Gut microbiota and gastric disease. Minerva Gastroenterol Dietol. 2017 Dec;63(4):345-354. doi: 10.23736/S1121-421X.17.02380-7. Epub 2017 Feb 15. PMID: 28206729.