This is a pretty important study.
As we know today, most of the diseases and problems that we get are due to inflammation.
So anything that reduces inflammation in a natural way is of great importance to us.
In this study, they tested the effects of vitamin A on inflammation.
We know that glucocorticoids such as prednisone, lower inflammation but they also slow down the healing of wounds.
But vitamin A promotes the healing of the wounds without promoting inflammation.
They created wounds in rats, which is not a very nice but it’s all in the name of science.
They did it on anesthetized rats and implanted discs under their skin.
They gave different groups of rats different compounds.
Some rats got prednisone, a pharma drug similar to the hormone Cortisol.
Some rats got ordinary vitamin A alone.
And some rats received a combination of prednisone and Vitamin A.
A fourth group got nothing at all — the control group.
Then they sacrificed some of the rats from each group and looked to see what was going on in the wounds.
The group with vitamin A alone did the best.
The group receiving prednisone did the worst.
This is important to keep in mind today when doctors prescribe prednisone like it was candy.
I can’t tell you how many people I know of have been a doctor and come back with prescriptions for prednisone.
They are often prescribed for people who have infections.
When the body needs to summon all its resources, the doctors are giving them prednisone.
The doctors are prescribing it because it suppresses the inflammation.
But it ALSO suppresses the natural healing functions.
How stupid is that?
The prednisone has an effect of reducing the immediate inflammatory process, but it also slows down the healing process.
However with vitamin A and the prednisone, the healing proceeded quite well.
Prednisone seemed to work best when it was given early.
By the time the wound had already been set for a few days, there was not much anti-inflammatory response from the prednisone.
As researchers note
vitamin A partially restores inflammation supports the assumption that corticoids inhibit healing by impairing inflammation and fibroplasia rather than by merely inhibiting fibroblasts from synthesizing collagen.
The prednisone reduced the accumulation of what are called fibroblasts, which are important in healing.
Vitamin A counteracted this effect.
As a result, the Vitamin A helped the wound heal faster.
So why are doctors prescribing prednisone without vitamin A at the same time?
Probably because there’s really no money in any of this.
And doctors are too busy to get educated on studies like this.
Doctors tend to rely on information from pharmaceutical companies to stay informed.
And if the drug company can’t make money on it, they don’t share the information.
But we’ve shared it with you so that you can talk to your doctor about it.
There is magic to the combination of vitamin A and cortisol or prednisone.
And there may be magic in taking vitamin A to help combat internal inflammation.
Citations
Effects of Vitamin A and Glucocorticoids upon Inflammation and Collagen Synthesis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1355568/
See this for more on Effects of Vitamin A, and see more on Living Healthy, and for more information see effects of Vitamins.