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Thanks for your thoughtful emails on the use of sugar as a dressing for infected and problematic wounds that just won't heal.

Many of you pointed out that honey has similar healing properties which makes sense given it has a high sugar content. There is plenty of looking at it's uses in this area, contrasting with much less research for simple sugar.

Among the emails this from Pete Haylor

"Just heard about the trials using sugar to treat wounds. as children we used to smear honey on cuts and wounds and I have also read on the Internet of honeys beneficial properties."

So I asked researcher Moses Murandu about the uses of honey.

"I have also used honey... and it did work. My question is the cost. Also honey contains some glucose, a simple sugar that has already been converted by bees' enzymes. This does have a slight influence on blood sugar levels. Where as sugar is sucrose, a disaccharide, that cannot easily be absorbed because it needs to be converted to simple sugars, glucose, in the liver. Sugar is also cheap and easily available. My next stop after this study is to demonstrate that sugar is better than honey in the long run. For now my aim was to prove that granulated sugar not sugar paste was effective in managing wounds."

Affecting blood sugar levels would be particularly bad news for diabetics of course who often have problems with poor circulation and these problematic wounds. It seems ironically enough sugar may be a better treatment for them.

We also had an email from Mike Braddock:

"As a student nurse in the mid 1960s, I was shown this method of treating wounds using granulated sugar. It does work removing necrotic tissue and feeding new tissue."

Nothing new under the sun! It's to be hoped this larger study involving some 300 patients across the Midlands will produce results that validate what Moses' father and Mike's lecturer told them all those years ago.

Thanks for getting in touch. Do email me if you have further thoughts.

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