According to a new ground breaking study, the bacteria thriving on the surface of our skin play a huge part in how our wounds heal. This study could play a pivotal role in devising new treatments for chornic wounds which effect 1 in 20 elderly people.
Unkown to most all of us spend our lives covered from head to toe in thin film of bacteria. We know in detail about the role of bacteria that resides in our digestive tracts helping us to break down food, little or next to nothing is known about bacteria that live on our skin. A new study unveils the fact that interaction between these bacteria and our skin cells determines how our wounds heal.
"This study gives us a much better understanding of the types of bacterial species that are found in skin wounds, how our cells might respond to the bacteria and how that interaction can affect healing," stated Matthew Hardman, PhD who is helming the project and also serves as a senior research fellow at The University of Manchester. "It's our hope that these insights could help lead to better treatments to promote wound healing that are based on sound biology."
Choronic wounds – cuts and lesions that take a long time to heal and seem as though they are not improving are a major health concern particularly in the elderly people. According to statistics 1 in 20 elderly lives with a chronic wound caused by any number of ailments such diabetes, insufficient blood circulation or due to lack of ambulation.
"These wounds can literally persist for years, and we simply have no good treatments to help a chronic wound heal," Currently physicians treating these wounds have no feasible way to predict if the wound is going to heal properly or not. "There's a definite need for better ways to both predict how a wound is going to heal and develop new treatments to promote healing."
The advent of modern medical science has taught us that not all microbes are our enemy and cause diseases. The biggest example of this are the digestive tract bacteria mentioned earlier. This has lead to the discovery that there might be other similarly beneficial bacteria. "Our data clearly support the idea that one could swab a wound, profile the bacteria that are there and then be able to tell whether the wound is likely to heal quickly or persist, which could impact treatment decisions," said Hardman.
"Presumably, the mice's defect in the ability to identify bacteria means that they aren't able to mount the right type of response," said Hardman. "Taken together, our studies in humans and mice offer good evidence that the skin microbiome has a direct effect on how we heal." Hardman further added.
"This study gives us a much better understanding of the types of bacterial species that are found in skin wounds, how our cells might respond to the bacteria and how that interaction can affect healing," stated Matthew Hardman, PhD who is helming the project and also serves as a senior research fellow at The University of Manchester. "It's our hope that these insights could help lead to better treatments to promote wound healing that are based on sound biology."
Choronic wounds – cuts and lesions that take a long time to heal and seem as though they are not improving are a major health concern particularly in the elderly people. According to statistics 1 in 20 elderly lives with a chronic wound caused by any number of ailments such diabetes, insufficient blood circulation or due to lack of ambulation.
"These wounds can literally persist for years, and we simply have no good treatments to help a chronic wound heal," Currently physicians treating these wounds have no feasible way to predict if the wound is going to heal properly or not. "There's a definite need for better ways to both predict how a wound is going to heal and develop new treatments to promote healing."
The advent of modern medical science has taught us that not all microbes are our enemy and cause diseases. The biggest example of this are the digestive tract bacteria mentioned earlier. This has lead to the discovery that there might be other similarly beneficial bacteria. "Our data clearly support the idea that one could swab a wound, profile the bacteria that are there and then be able to tell whether the wound is likely to heal quickly or persist, which could impact treatment decisions," said Hardman.
"Presumably, the mice's defect in the ability to identify bacteria means that they aren't able to mount the right type of response," said Hardman. "Taken together, our studies in humans and mice offer good evidence that the skin microbiome has a direct effect on how we heal." Hardman further added.