Healing the wounds or having surgery? Don't forget the Vitamin C!

Dr Rath Research Institute,
Santa Clara, California, USA

Many ugly malformations of scar tissues or prolonged and complicated recoveries from surgical procedures can be avoided by the simple measure of taking the right vitamins.

This is not new knowledge however. As long ago as 1937, Harvard Medical School surgeons observed the importance of vitamin C for wound healing in patients recovering from surgeries [1]. These physicians noted that “spontaneous breakdown of a surgical wound in the absence of infection occurs with relative frequency in patients with the cachexia of cancer, in debilitated individuals, and in young patients; notably those who have some congenital anomaly of the gastro-intestinal tract.” Therefore, their recommendation for the administration of vitamin C was based on their subsequent observations that wound healing becomes faulty with low vitamin C, and that vitamin C levels were low in their patients.

While such information remains pertinent today, it may be omitted in medical practice as routine protocols take precedent in the clinic. Recently we have received reports from nurses and practitioners whose patients' wounds will not heal despite the lack of complications. These practitioners even speculated that it may be a vitamin C deficiency or other malnutrition that is responsible for the slow wound healing. However, they admitted that some of their patients, frightened by the media vitamin scares, were hesitant to take supplements without scientific evidence of their beneficial effects.

Therefore, it should benefit medical practitioners, their patients and the public at large to revisit these dusty old papers and new data explaining the role of vitamin C and nutrition in wound healing.......................

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/NHC/articles/2008_08_14_vitamin_c_in_wound...
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