Sugar for healing wounds?

I had read of honey healing wounds in several places, but reading this about sugar was new to me!
sugar to heal wounds link
This is one article, & below I'm pasting info from another one.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- We all know that sugar makes
good foods taste better, helps breads rise, creates cookies' crunchiness or
chewiness, and protects the safety of jams and jellies.  But, did you know the
same preserving power sugar brings to jams and jellies can also help heal
wounds?

Sugar is one of Mother Nature's most miraculous creations.  Many of the same
properties that make sugar an excellent food preservative also bestow it with
its healing powers.  Sugar has been used to treat wounds according to records
dating back to 1700 B.C.  Today, scientists here and abroad are rediscovering
sugar's wonderful healing powers and reporting surprising success in the use
of sugar to treat serious wounds and especially burns that fail to respond to
conventional therapy.

When sugar is applied to an open wound, it absorbs the wound's moisture
necessary for the growth of infectious bacteria.  Physicians also believe
sugar supplies the very nourishment damaged tissues require for healing and
re-growth.

From the Microbiology Infectious Diseases Journal, Vol. 7, 1998, p. 524-25: 
"Sugar is thought to exert an antibacterial effect by lowering water activity;
the desloughing and debridement that is achieved with the paste is in part
related to an osmotic effect on necrotic tissue and in part to mechanical
cleaning." 

From the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Vol. 78, 1996, p.
82-85:  "Granulated sugar has been used with success in treatment of open
mediastanitis after cardiac surgery with the bacterial contamination of the
wounds being eliminated in a few days.  This study also suggested that sugar
treatment leads to faster healing of infected wounds than conventional packing
methods."

From the Southern Medical Journal, November 1981:  "Over a 56-month period we
treated 605 patients for wounds, burns, and ulcers with granulated sugar and
povidone-iodine. Rapid healing ensued... The requirements for skin grafting
and antibiotics were greatly reduced, as were hospital costs for wound, burn
and ulcer care."

So, maybe Mary Poppins wasn't wrong when she said a spoonful of sugar helps
the medicine go down.  Science is showing that it helps wounds heal, as well
as preserve the safety of our foods.



SOURCE  Sugar Association