If you have a cut on your finger, normally you will put it in your mouth, while a dog or cat will start licking its wound.
Why is that?
Medical science is only just learning what God knew when He built this reaction into us.
Actually the saliva of mammals and human beings contains epidermal growth factor. Studies show that when epidermal growth factor is applied to wounds, healing takes place much faster. Epidermal growth factor increases the number of cells available to grow new skin over a wound and it also encourages capillaries to form near the wound to increase blood supply.
Epidermal growth factor doubles the amount of new DNA at the wound site, as well as, increase the amount of collagen in the wound to give the new tissue the strength to close up and remain closed.
Published in the FASEB Journal, scientists from The Netherlands took epithelial cells that line the inner cheek and cultured them in dishes until the surfaces were completely covered with cells. By scratching a small piece of the cells away, scientists made an artificial wound in the cell layer in each dish.
One dish contained cells that were bathed in an isotonic fluid, the other dish contained cells that were bathed in human saliva.
After 16 hours, the scientists noticed that the saliva treated "wound" was almost completely closed, proving that human saliva contains a factor which accelerates wound closure of oral cells.
Source:
Creation Moments
Science 20
Shared with: the healthy home economist
