Saliva - Your Personal First Aid Kit

What is the first thing you do or the first thing an animal will do when experiencing a wound?

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.

Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal said, "This study not only answers the biological question of why animals lick their wounds, it also explains why wounds in the mouth, like those of a tooth extraction, heal much faster than comparable wounds of the skin and bone."

Source:
Creation Moments
Science 20

Shared with:  the healthy home economist

What Are GMOs?

What exactly are GMOs?  GMOs are "Genetically Modified Organisms", the process of combining the genes of separate organisms to engineer a new one, such as, corn with modified DNA to produce its own pesticide.

Chemical companies like Monsanto and Dow are feeding us genetically-modified food, GMOs, that have never been fully tested and aren't labeled.

Did you know that:
-80% of all processed foods in the United States contain GMOs.
-Genetically modified food toxins are found in the blood of 80% of unborn babies.
-Monsanto owns 90% of genetically modified seeds in the US.

The GMO Film Project, by Compeller Pictures, (listed above), tells the story of a father's discovery of GMOs through the symbolic act of poor Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto's gift of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake.

"Control the food, and you control the people."  -- Henry Kissinger


Shared with: the healthy home economist