Chronic wounds are a frequent finding in clinical practice and one of the problems with high impact on social health, affecting mainly the elderly people with chronic diseases (diabetes, nutritional abnormalities, cardiovascular diseases, chronic motor deficit and obesity) which are associated with alterations in wound healing due to skin repair damaged mechanisms. Moreover, while current therapeutic agents have generally inadequate efficacy and number of serious adverse effects, the natural remedies have been used in medicine since ancient times and are well known for their abilities to promote wound healing whitout  grave side effects. This is why natural remedies may be an alternative strategy for treatment of wound.

Fig. 1. Effects of honey, pollen and unsaponifiable matter of vegetable oils of plant seeds on wound healing.

Recently many reviews clarify the mechanisms and therapeutic properties of honey and bee pollen in wound healing. The mechanisms of action of honey and bee pollen are majorly due to a variety of substances present in them, in particular aliphatic fatty alcohols, vitamins, phenols and flavonoids. It should be remembered that because bees have different and various nutritional behavior and collect the nourishments from different and various plants, the produced honey and pollen have different composition and probably different efficacy on wound healing. Also medicinal plants have been used to promote wound healing, in particular the mechanisms of action of herbal remedies are due to unsaponifiable fraction of vegetable  oils, the substances present in them are flavonoids, phenols, squalene derived compounds, hydrocarbons, vitamins, terpene, sterols, aliphatic fatty alcohols. The unsaponifiable fractions of vegetable oils are quantitatively and qualitative different thereby leading to different effect on wound healing.

All these active substances are eudermic, nourishing, protective, soohting for skin because they have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory antimicrobial, angiogenetic effect and active cell signaling factor so they enhance wound healing (Fig. 1).

For these reasons emerges the importance of testing in more studies different preparations based on honey, pollen and unsaponifiable fraction of vegetable oils to be used to promote the process of healing on chronic wound.

Alessandro Ragno, Daniele Marsili and Emanuela Cavallaro
Unit of Internal Medicine, “Regina Apostolorum” Hospital, Albano Laziale, Rome, Italy

Publication

Honey, bee pollen and vegetable oil unsaponifiables in wound healing.
Ragno A, Cavallaro E, Marsili D, Apa M, D’Erasmo L, Martin LS
J Tissue Viability. 2016 Aug

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