Posted on 11/30/2012 12:09:15 PM PST by neverdem
People with diabetes face the possibility of a number of serious complications, including poor wound healing. Now a new study has found that application of a topical statin drug speeds up wound healing in mice with diabetes.
Diabetes has several characteristics that make recovering from wounds more challenging. For example, people with diabetes have a weakened immune system, which makes healing more problematic. Nerve damage (neuropathy), which is common in diabetes, can make individuals unable to feel the pain associated with a cut or blister until it becomes infected.
Diabetes is also associated with narrow arteries, which makes it more difficult for blood to reach a wound and facilitate healing. Overall, 15 percent of people with diabetes will develop wound problems, and diabetics also have a 15-fold increased risk of amputation, with about 82,000 diabetics undergoing amputation each year. Foot wounds are the most common type of wound complication.
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Therefore, the need to effectively improve wound healing among diabetics is critical. A research team composed of scientists from various institutions have now discovered that topical simvastatin may offer some hope for these individuals. Simvastatin is a statin drug typically prescribed to lower cholesterol.
The test was developed to determine if topical simvastatin could promote the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) and the formation of new lymphatic vessels (lymphoangiogenesis) in mice genetically modified to have diabetes. The study was conducted as follows.
A skin wound was created on the backs of mice with diabetes, and each wound was then treated with topical simvastatin mixed with petroleum jelly or a control (petroleum jelly only). Application of the drug or petroleum jelly alone was repeated on days 4, 7, and 10.
After two weeks, the researchers noted that wounds treated with simvastatin were more than 90 percent healed compared with less than an 80 percent healed rate among wounds treated with petroleum jelly alone. When wound closure alone was examined, closure was best on day 7 among wounds treated with simvastatin (79.26% healed) compared with those treated with petroleum jelly alone (52.45%).
It should be noted that while taking simvastatin orally is associated with increased risks, such as kidney damage, use of the topical statin drug is not. Other side effects associated with oral simvastatin use may include muscle pain or weakness, fever, unusual tiredness, pain or burning when urinating, swelling, weight gain, nausea, itching, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, headache, joint pain, constipation, rash, insomnia, and jaundice.
In this study, the researchers noted that topical simvastatin "significantly accelerates wound recovery by increasing both angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis," according to lead investigator Jun Asai, MD, PhD, of Kyoto Prefectural University School of Medicine in Japan. Asai called the use of topical simvastatin a "simple strategy that may have significant therapeutic potential for enhancing wound healing in patients with impaired microcirculation, such as that in diabetes."
Although the use of topical simvastatin for slowing or even preventing wound healing among people with diabetes may be in the future, there are steps people with diabetes can take now to help stop wound healing challenges. They include:
Poor wound healing is a significant complication of diabetes, but it is one that individuals with diabetes can help avoid. The potential for use of the topical statin drug simvastatin is still in the future, as more studies are needed to determine its efficacy and safety.
SOURCES:
Asai J et al. Topical simvastatin accelerates wound healing in diabetes by enhancing angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. American Journal of Pathology 2012 Dec; 181(6): 2217-24
Greater Baltimore Wound Care Center
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Standard therapies in Europe right now should be investigated by those with diabetes or who have family members afflicted.
This include a normal, daily supplement of vitamin B-1. The excess urination caused by diabetes results in a loss of albumin, which in turn causes many severe problems to the kidneys and liver. B-1 preserves albumin levels so is essential to those with diabetes. Not megadoses, just normal amounts, like 100mg a day. Please research it.
A less common therapy is R-Alpha Lipoic Acid. (Note: though ALA is fairly common as a supplement, R-ALA is less available, usually only through mail order.) In specific, R-ALA is used to stave off or even partially reverse diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage leading to numbness) in the extremities. Please research it.
Weight Loss Surgery May Not Combat Diabetes Long-Term
Robert Lustig’s “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” lecture
Fructose in fruit is OK as long as its eaten in normal amounts. Dr. Lustig is on the warpath about any kind of processed fructose including table sugar. "Fructose is ethanol without the buzz." Fructose can be toxic to your liver like ethanol. It uses many of the same metabolic pathways. It screws up normal hormonal "feedback" loops that tells your brain that you hve eaten enough carbohydrates, especially glucose.
If you haven't seen it, set aside 90 minutes and watch it. It's certainly the best Youtube I have ever seen.
FReepmail me if you want on or off the diabetes ping list.
Weight Loss Surgery May Not Combat Diabetes Long-Term
Robert Lustig’s “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” lecture
Fructose in fruit is OK as long as its eaten in normal amounts. Dr. Lustig is on the warpath about any kind of processed fructose including table sugar. "Fructose is ethanol without the buzz." Fructose can be toxic to your liver like ethanol. It uses many of the same metabolic pathways. It screws up normal hormonal "feedback" loops that tells your brain that you hve eaten enough carbohydrates, especially glucose.
If you haven't seen it, set aside 90 minutes and watch it. It's certainly the best Youtube I have ever seen.
FReepmail me if you want on or off the diabetes ping list.
Entering vitamin B-1 and diabetes and albumin into PubMed's query box got 14 results. That's one of them. Check the right sidebar too for related results.
Entering (R-Alpha Lipoic Acid or Alpha Lipoic Acid or ALA or R-ALA) and diabetic neuropathy into PubMed's query box got 192 results. You got my drift. Save PubMed if you haven't already. Thanks for the reminders.
let’s see, our ancient ancestors the lemurs ate fruit almost exclusively!!!! (see; http://www.buzzle.com/articles/lemurs-diet.html ) ~ so what happened? Did fructose in vast quantities, our basic staple for millions of years, turn poisonous on us? Guys it ain’t always been porkchops and hominey!
“A less common therapy is R-Alpha Lipoic Acid. (Note: though ALA is fairly common as a supplement, R-ALA is less available, usually only through mail order.) In specific, R-ALA is used to stave off or even partially reverse diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage leading to numbness) in the extremities. Please research it.”
Alpha Lipoic Acid is a powerful antioxidant and it is useful in regenerating organs, specifically the liver and the pancreas. Alpha Lipoic Acid is typically about 50% the R- isomer and is the only one beneficial to the body. When you buy ALA, you are getting both isomers...they are mirror images and can’t be overlaid. A 200 mg capsule of ALA would typically give you about 100 mg of R-Lipoic Acid.
We've been omnivores for quite a while. Those incisors, cuspids and bicuspids didn't happen for no reason. Check out the Lustig lecture in comments 3 or 4. (It was accidentally double posted.) The biochemistry is very compelling. Excess fructose is the best explanation for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease that I've seen.
You get out there like a monkey in a tree investing some serious work in every gram of food you eat there shouldn't be any problem at all.
http://www.rfadventures.com/images/Animals/Mammals/ringtail-lemur-skull-bg.jpg Check this dude’s canines! Not bad for a berry eating fruit sucking insect squarshing vegetablerian!
I doubt it. Assuming that diagnosis is correct, she has MODY, Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young. It's characterized by being more than a little overweight and insulin resistance, i.e. a person uses a lot more insulin than a normal person to get their glucose out of the blood into their cells where it's used for energy or stored as glycogen in liver and muscle or converted into triglycerides, i.e. fat.
If she got MODY, she needs a serious dietary intervention plus exercise. Some type 2 diabetics can control their blood glucose with diet and exercise.
If you enter Volek JS, Feinman RD into PubMed's query box, then you'll do an authors' search on two writers who have written 11 articles showing the benefit of dietary carbohydrate restriction.
She needs to quit soda flavored with high fructose corn syrup. and limit fruit juice, especially juice like apple juice which is basically a solution of sugars in water. Diet pop is waste of money, IMHO. If she's craves sweet drinks start cutting it with club soda or seltzer and add ice cubes. Some people are literally addicted to sweets. Then she'll have to be weened off sweets.
Have her watch this lecture, Robert Lustig’s “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” lecture "Fructose is ethanol without the buzz." Lustig is down on sucrose too because it's part fructose. It's almost 90 minutes, very well spent. It will help with any biochemistry and physiology she has to take.
Guess what, excess fructose interferes with the synthesis of nitric oxide, a natural vasodilator that lowers blood pressure. Check that Dr Lustig lecture. It's on both ends of the thread. You'll be glad that you did.
Thanks for the reply. It was very informative. She’s not over weight, and doesn’t drink sugar drinks. She was a 6mo baby. I don’t suppose being premature has anything to do with the diabetes. We were all shocked as she has always been so healthy. Thanks again.
If the issue is assisting wounds to heal, you might try applying a few drops of Lavender Essential Oil directly into the wound. The Lavender oil does not sting or hurt, does kill bacteria, and promotes healing.
I had a 3 inch incision on my arm last month (connecting an artery to a vein), applied a few drops of Lavender oil several times a day to the incision (no bandage), and it was pretty much healed within a week. It made me a believer.
My wife is a diabetic; about 2 months ago she fell onto our blacktop driveway, causing gashes near her kneecaps. Lavender oil to the rescue, healed in about a week. It is first aid in a 15ml bottle, small enough to carry anywhere.
You never say never in medicine, but extreme physical stress like trauma can be associated with elevated blood glucose, aka hyperglycemia. Your body makes cortisol when it's very stressed. It's your own steroid hormone made in the adrenal gland.
She wasn't taking any medicine or supplement that could cause hyperglycemia, was she? This story doesn't really add up without obesity in the picture. Was she eating a lot, drinking a lot and urinating a lot? Those are the symptoms when a diabetic is in trouble. You may have to rule out Munchausen syndrome if there's no physical basis for the diagnosis.
Lavender Essential Oil, thanks for the tip!
Where can this be gotten?
CA....
Thanks for the link to Robert Lustig’s lecture. It makes me happy I went on a low-carb diet. Also, the next time some doctor tells me to eat less and exercise more, I’m going to hand him a copy of that link.
Watch it when you have 90 minutes to kill. It's the best Youtube that I have seen to date.
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