Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Learning to love the maggot

Pour on 'maggot juice' to help heal wounds - tech - 09 October 2006 - New Scientist Tech

From the story:

Bandages containing fluids secreted by maggots could help accelerate the body's healing process, research suggests.

Live maggots are sometimes applied to chronic wounds because they eat dead tissue, but leave healthy tissue alone, boosting healing. But now it has been demonstrated that the fluids produced by maggots also contain enzymes that actually accelerate tissue repair.

Armed with the new findings, researchers in the UK hope to produce wound-dressings impregnated with the active maggot components. The idea is that, as well as protecting the wound, the dressings will speed up healing without the "yuk factor" involved with using live maggots.

I thought "yuk" was spelt "yuck".

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