Eating chocolate 'can help relieve pain', study claims/ Cut yourself? Tribal remedy of sprinkling SUGAR on wound heals it faster

October 17, 2009

In the book "Your body's many cries for water" it showed how dehydration increased pain. Excellent book. Sorry I forgot the author. N

Eating chocolate 'can help relieve pain', study claims

Eating chocolate and drinking a glass of water can help relieve pain, a study has found.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6321124/Eating-chocolate-can-help-relieve-pain-study-claims.html

By Andrew HoughPublished: 7:00AM BST 14 Oct 2009

The distraction of eating chocolate for pleasure acts as a natureal painkiller, the study found. Photo: CATHAL McNAUGHTON

The distraction of eating and drinking water for pleasure acts as a natural way of beating pain, the researchers discovered.

The natural painkiller, discovered during testing in rats, is the first to demonstrate such a powerful effect, said the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

While the study was carried out in animals, the team, from the University of Chicago, believe the same effects can be seen in humans.

"It's a strong, strong effect, but it's not about hunger or appetite," said lead author Peggy Mason, a professor of neurobiology.

"If you have all this food in front of you that's easily available to reach out and get, you're not going to stop eating, for basically almost any reason."

In the experiments, the researchers gave rats either a chocolate chip to eat or sugar water to drink as they lit a light bulb underneath their cages.

The heat from the bulb normally caused the rodents to lift their paws.

But when the rats ate chocolate or drank water, their pain response to the heat was dulled.

They did not lift their paws as quickly as when they were not eating. They also kept on eating.

Dr Mason said eating stimulated a system in the part of the brain that controls subconscious responses, which was known to blunt pain.

"This really shows it has nothing to do with calories," she said.

"Water has no calories, saccharine has no sugar, but both have the same effect as a chocolate chip.

"It's really shocking."

The natural form of pain relief may help animals in the wild avoid distraction while eating scarce food, but in modern-day humans, it could be contributing to over-eating and obesity, she said.

Previous studies have indicated that only sugary substances had a pain-dulling effect, but the latest study found the same regardless of whether they were nibbling chocolate or drinking water.

Dr Mason suggested doctors change the way they calm patients' nerves.

"Stop giving patients lollipops," she said.

"Ingestion is a painkiller but we don't need the sugar. Water blunts pain, too.”

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Cut yourself? Tribal remedy of sprinkling SUGAR on wound heals it faster

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1220316/Cut-Sprinkling-SUGAR-wound-help-heal-faster-lessen-pain.html

By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 8:28 AM on 15th October 2009

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Rubbing sugar into wounds could cure painful infections including bedsores, research shows.

The traditional African remedy is being trialled in British hospitals after a study led by a senior nurse raised in Zimbabwe.

As a child, Moses Murandu watched his father put crushed sugar cane on villagers' wounds and grew up thinking it was a widely used treatment.

Sugar is used as a traditional healing remedy in Zimbabwe

When he moved to England he was surprised to find doctors did not use it.

His six-month study involved 21 patients at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham whose wounds had not responded to conventional treatment.

More...

How a chunk of chocolate can melt away your pain

It showed that pouring granulated sugar on to bed sores, leg ulcers or amputations before dressing can kill the bacteria that prevents healing and causes chronic pain.

Bacteria need water to survive but sugar draws water from the wound into the dressing.

Mr Murandu, 43, believes the technique, which was passed down from his great-grandfather, could save the NHS billions.

'The village where I grew up was very small and we didn't have a great deal of medicine available to us,' he said.

'Doctors here tend to forget the traditional medicines that have been working for thousands of years.'

Bosses at the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham have been so impressed that he has been awarded £25,000 to treat up to 100 more patients with sugar.

Delighted Moses, a medical lecturer from the University of Wolverhampton, said: 'Using granulated sugar in wounds has never been done in the UK before, although sugar paste has been used.

'While salt is painful, sugar is not and it reduces the pain drastically. Sugar is also much cheaper than expensive medicines and it has proven to be just as effective.'

Billions of pounds that is currently spent on medicines could be saved if the treatment is adopted by the NHS.

Moses added: 'I was happy for the patients who suffer from terrible and debilitating wounds with little hope of getting better, as this treatment can ease their pain.

'I would really like to see sugar treatment used in many more places because I know that it works.'

Moses will use the £25,000 prestigious Fondation Le Lous Scientific Research Innovation Award grant that he was awarded from Herve Le Lous - a French company - for a wider study that treats around 100 patients at four different hospitals.

Jacqui Fletcher, a board member of Herve Le Lous, said: 'In the UK we have a habit of saying "In countries that can't afford proper dressings they use other things, but when you are here you have the freedom and luxury of choosing a whole range of alternatives".

'Treating wounds with sugar has been a wive's tale for a number of years but this is the first time that medical evidence has proven that it works.

'Moses didn't think that way, he challenged current thinking. He takes the view that he used sugar very effectively, therefore why wouldn't it work equally well here?'

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I have healed small wounds by putting honey on them!

- paula, norfolk uk, 15/10/2009 22:21

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I remember my Irish mother making a sugar and soap poultice..many times .and applying it to a boil....to "ease out the poison" sugar and soap wrapped up in cotton material and dipped for a second or two in boiling water twisted round and + applied to the sore spot .. I am 83 I was was pleased to read this article + now the last comment which mentions this same treatmment for boils thank you

- A Hill, Wincchester England, 15/10/2009 21:52

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James of Yoevil makes a valid point, in some ways, but the sugar is there to remove water from the wound. A bacterial infection needs three things to grow (like any living thing), food, air and water. Deprive it of any of these and the growth will stop and the infection will die. Sugar is a natural preservative in the same way as salt and vinegar are. All of which have been used for centuries to clean and heal wounds. Sugar just happens to be the only one that doesn't cause excrutiating pain when rubbed into open wounds

- Jay, Carmarthenshire, Wales, 15/10/2009 14:55

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"So true as a child I trod on a broken bottle which cut my second toe it was hanging on by the skin on top, we could not find my father so the farm hand ran in the kitchen and poured sugar on my toe and it healed no stiches and I was walking and running within a week! ( That happened in Tanzania) - Topaz, West Sussex, 15/10/2009 1:35"

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