Moses Murandu is a senior lecturer in adult nursing at the University of Wolverhampton, and he has made a remarkable discovery. As a child in Zimbabwe, if he fell and cut himself his father would literally rub salt into the wounds, unless he could afford sugar that day. Murandu noticed that sugar seemed to help heal wounds more quickly than no treatment at all, and yet sugar isn’t used in any official medical capacity.
But Murandu is striving to change that, he has completed an initial pilot study focused on sugar’s applications in wound healing and won an award from the Journal of Wound Care in March 2018 for his work. Evidence to support the use of sugar in healing wounds was discovered during Murandu’s trials and a growing collection of case studies from around the world has supported his findings – including examples of successful sugar treatments on wounds resistant to antibiotics.
The sugar Murandu uses is the plain, granulated type you might use to sweeten your tea and find in any and every grocery store. Although in the early stages of research, the outcomes with sugar look very positive. The potential for this new medical use of sugar to improve healing and hugely reduce cost in South Africa and throughout the continent could open up to our sugar cane and farming communities a world of exciting new opportunity.
With funding and assistance from the South African government a medical trail like this could make the world of difference to both the South African economy and countless poverty stricken communities throughout the country. In fact the pro’s of such a project are countless from job creation to affordable and accessible medical care, the only question that remains is why isn’t the government launching projects just like this one?
