Bananas and wound healing
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Bananas and wound healing

12 June 2022 In News By thewoundguy

Bananas and wound healing

There are two ways of looking at how bananas can positively impact on wound healing – the nutrition pathway and the topical one.

Lets look at the nutritional composition of bananas:

  • the inner pulp and the peel can both be eaten. The peel is prepared for consumption via boiling or frying. The peel is a higher source of fibre than the pulp.
  • a good source of potassium, pectin (a fibre), magnesium (sustains muscles when under exertion), vitamin C & B6 (useful as anti-oxidants and for generating granulation tissue).
  • one banana can provide 11% of the daily Vitamin C required intake.

There are subsequent physiologic benefits from eating bananas:

  • antioxidant action
  • may provide some protection from developing Type 2 diabetes
  • may assist in decreasing tissue swelling – reducing water retention by increasing urine production and lowering sodium
  • increases production of white blood cells (ripe bananas do this better than green ones) – due to the release of Vitamin C
  • improves nerve conduction
  • elevates mood and can assist with better sleep via its amino acid tryptophan which increases the brain’s serotonin and melatonin
  • the fibre in bananas can reduce constipation and improve gut regularity.

Research into biomaterials has found that the combination of banana skin and chitosan, applied topically to a wound, provides a skin tissue “scaffold” which provides a structure for cell movement and activity.

The advantages of this combination are:

  • good biocompatibility and low toxicity
  • antimicrobial action (against both gram positive and negative microbes, as well as fungus) … may be biofilm retarding
  • the dressing is biodegradable
  • improves the strength of chitosan making a wound dressing presentation possible (due to the lignin fibre in banana peel)
  • the pectin in bananas helps draw and hold water
  • the product can be applied to infected wounds, burns and bruises.

Indonesia is presently the leading source and supplier of chitosan – banana peel wound products.

 

References: Szalay,J Bryner,J Dobrijevic,D  Bananas: facts, benefits and nutrition. www.livescience.com/45005-banana-nutrition-facts  2021

Rihayat,T et al Wound dressing based on banana peel waste and chitosan by strengthening lignin as wound healing medicine.

Materials Science and Engineering 2019;506

 

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