Influence of nutritional factors upon the variation of essential metal concentrations on wound healing

Abstract

Many wound healing processes could benefit from the correct concentration of essential metal species. The influence of some nutritional factors (drinking water, preferred drinks, etc.) and non-nutritional factors (age, sex, site of the wound, etc.) on the concentration of essential metals around normally healing acute wounds was investigated.Blood and the wound fluids collected with regard to post operative periods of day one, three and five from clean wounds of patients undergone various surgical procedures were analyzed for concentrations of Fe, Zn, Cu, Mn, Ca, Sn, Cr, Cd and Pb using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. All the data were tested for normality by Ryan-Joiner normality test (α = 0.05) and one-way ANOVA was done for the normally distributed data.The Fe concentrations of day one samples are similar to the blood and lower in day three and five. Ca is stable in the wound fluid. Zn and Cu seem to be accumulated around the site of healing wounds. The concentration of Mn varies with the healing. Except for Zn, Cu and Mn the wound fluid is not significantly vary with nutritional factors and non-nutritional factors.The results show quite wide variations in the concentrations of Ca, Zn, Cu, Fe and Mn in the wound fluid and also an adequate supply of Zn and Cu is essential for the healing process. Non-nutritional factors are not so important for the variation of these metal concentrations around the acute wounds.