Creepy, yet calming. Maggots' excretions soothe inflamed wounds, speeding healing.
Credit: Cory Doctorow
Posted on 12/06/2012 9:07:50 PM PST by neverdem
Yes, maggots are creepy, crawly, and slimy. But that slime is a remarkable healing balm, used by battlefield surgeons for centuries to close wounds. Now, researchers say they've figured out how the fly larvae work their magic: They suppress our immune system.
Maggots are efficient consumers of dead tissue. They munch on rotting flesh, leaving healthy tissue practically unscathed. Physicians in Napoleon's army used the larvae to clean wounds. In World War I, American surgeon William Baer noticed that soldiers with maggot-infested gashes didn't have the expected infection or swelling seen in other patients. The rise of penicillin in the 1940s made clinical maggots less useful, but they bounced back in the 1990s when antibiotic-resistant bacteria created a new demand for alternative treatments. In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved maggot therapy as a prescription treatment.
Although anecdotal reports suggested that maggots curb inflammation, no one had scientifically tested the idea. So a team led by surgical resident Gwendolyn Cazander of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands siphoned samples of maggot secretions from disinfected maggots in the lab and added them to donated blood samples from four healthy adults. The researchers then measured the levels of so-called complement proteins, which are involved in the body's inflammatory response.
Every blood sample treated with maggot secretions showed lower levels of complement proteins than did control samples—99.9% less in the best case, the team reports in the current issue of Wound Repair and Regeneration. Looking closer, the researchers found the broken-down remnants of two complement proteins—C3 and C4—in the secretion-treated samples, suggesting that the secretions had ripped the proteins apart. When the team tested blood samples from postoperative patients, whose wounded bodies were already scrambling to heal, they found that maggot secretions reduced the levels of complement proteins by 19% to 55%.
For good measure, the team tested the maggot secretions again after a day, a week, and a month to determine their shelf life. They also boiled some. To their surprise, the secretions were more effective after boiling and lost no potency after sitting on the shelf for a month.
It's not surprising that maggot secretions would suppress the immune system, Cazander says. Otherwise, the larvae would probably be attacked by the body. She says she hasn't yet seen such a reaction, even in patients treated with maggots for more than a year.
Cazander's team is now working to isolate the complement-inhibiting compounds. A clinical drug featuring maggot secretions may be several years away—but if you can't wait, the maggots themselves are available now.
The research team's conclusions are spot-on, says Ronald Sherman, pathologist, pioneering maggot researcher, and board chair of the BioTherapeutics, Education and Research Foundation in Irvine, California. Sherman's nonprofit foundation connects patients with doctors willing to handle the crawly critters. Faster wound healing probably arises from several combined maggot effects, he says, such as increasing oxygen concentrations in the wound and enhancing cellular growth. "This research advances our understanding of how and why maggot therapy helps wounds heal faster."
It doesn’t work that way. If there’s no necrotic dead tissue the maggots go looking for some. They don’t eat healthy flesh.
Why do I always click on these threads when I sit down for lunch?
True, that!
Take one bottle of bourbon daily until wound heals...LOL It helps a lot with diabetics who have stubborn wounds the cannot heal and I believe they are painless if you dont think about whats under that dressing. LOL
The maggots are very tiny when applied...as they do their job, they grow to what we all think of as a mature maggot..
Bet those young men that had DI’s calling them “Maggots” never realized they may one day be really valuable.
I use it as a daily mouthwash and it has stopped my gums from bleeding and even made flossing so much easier...I don't have dental insurance and needed a way to treat my gums naturally. Very happy with it for that purpose. Even says “oral debriding agent” on the bottle.
I also use for scrapes before scabbing to cleanse germs and use alcohol as well.
HP is definitely our friend! Probably not powerful enough for the purposes for which maggots are used, but our friend nevertheless.
Which might have been what happened in my uncle’s case. The maggots did their thing and then went looking for more, outside the bandage. Darn near gave him a heart attack when he saw them.
:-)
It’s always interesting to see what threads generate the most interest here!
My Gram, who’s family was from Canada, told me that when she was a girl (1920 or so) her Uncle came down with a bad sickness. It was the middle of winter. Her other Uncles cut a hole in the ice of their pond and went in for leeches to put on her sick Uncle. He ended up dying.
I thought you would want maggots that were not carrying diseases. But, whatever works for you!
Didn’t know maggots could carry disease....buy hey, if flies do, makes sense that maggots would too....
So how come no one else has brought that up before?
Shouldn’t we post this now as a new humor thread under “Vanity”....?????
Let's leave sleeping maggots lie.
well, it was a good thread; while it lasted.
Thanks for the ping!
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
Hi. Thanks for the clarification.
Hi -
I’ve been doing the same for 20 years with 3% and floss before I spit it out and brush with toothpaste. Basically no gum infections in all that time. In fact, at my most recent visit to the dentist, he commented on how little bone erosion I have around my teeth for my age (57).
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