Vitamins that promote healing of wounds are those that are known to replace energy used up by your body during the stress of trauma. These vitamins are vitamin K, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin B complex including vitamin B5. Essential minerals work in conjunction with these nutrients to help fight off infection, repair tissues and encourage the replacement of lost blood.
How Wounds are Identified
Wounds tend to be identified as primary, secondary and tertiary wounds. Primary wounds close by themselves, with little or no assistance. Secondary wounds need some intervention such as contraction and re-epithelialization to encourage healing to occur. Tertiary wounds involve a degree of delay before they begin to heal. Another name for tertiary wounds is delayed primary closure. These wounds usually need some kind of suture and always need intervention to assist with healing. [see Reference 2].
How Wounds Heal
There are three phases that wounds go through during the healing process: inflammatory, proliferative and maturation. The first phase involves your body's natural response to any trauma. It involves platelets migrate to the site of your wound to form a temporary covering which we refer to as a clot. White blood cells, including neutrophils and macrophages, are encouraged to migrate towards the wound by a special function of the platelets which act as a marker for the wound. Macrophages contain growth factor which assists the wound to heal. Macrophages and neutrophils help with debridement while neutrophils also kill bacteria.
The Proliferation and Maturation Stage
Once the neutrophils, macrophages and platelets have started the wound-healing process, it is time for tissue reconstruction to occur. This reconstruction stage is known as proliferation and includes your wound growing new epithelial tissue, knitting together the blood vessels or angiogenesis, and tissue granulation. Granulation of tissue occurs when the fibrin clot is replace by new, healthy epithelial tissue. Maturation occurs when the edges of the wound turn under and contract inwards, with new epithelial tissue maturing and closing the wound with a minimum of scar tissue.
What is the role of the vitamins?
Macrophages, when they migrate to your wound, are there to prevent bacteria from invading the broken tissue. Vitamin C is an essential component in maintaining a healthy immune system, replenishing depleted supplies in your body as required. Vitamin A is essential for connective tissue to be manufactured. Collagen is also dependent on a good source of vitamin A. Newly formed tissues and the formation of new blood vessels are both dependent on an adequate source of Vitamin A. [see Reference 3].
Clotting Fact and Vitamin K
Thrombin is your body's clotting agent. Vitamin K is necessary, in conjunction with calcium, to help stop your wound from bleeding. Sufficient vitamin K in your body ensures that platelets will be able to form a matrix with the clotting factor to develop a clot over your wound which will prevent further blood loss. Vitamin C is essential during the proliferation and maturation stage as its presence ensures collagen can be laid down during the tissue granulation process. Vitamin C is also an essential component of elastin which is the substance that enables your skin and other tissues to stretch, an essential feature of the maturation phase. Vitamin E is thought to minimize tissue damage making it a useful supplement to take during the granularization process.[see Reference 1].
Granularization and Vitamin B5
Vitamin B5 is another vitamin that is an essential vitamin to promote healing of wounds as it encourages cells to migrate towards the wound. This encourages the granularization process where new epithelial tissue is laid down. Vitamin B5 also limits the amount of inflammation occurring around the site of the wound. This vitamin has been recognized as enhancing the synthesis of new protein which, in turn, speeds up the rate at which the wound heals. Researchers noted that when wounds were treated with a combination of Vitamin B5 and Vitamin C together, wounds healed quicker and more effectively. [see Reference 1].
The Role of Minerals
There are also a range of minerals that are essential for promoting the healing of wounds following trauma. This includes copper and zinc, amongst others. Zinc is an important mineral as it encourages your body to produce collagen as well as manufacturing new proteins. [see Reference 2]. It is also important in cell division. Copper is also essential for the production of collagen as well as for orchestrating various enzymes that are involved in the healing of wounds following trauma. [see Reference 1].
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