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study: supplements to promote collagen synthesis after surgery
There’s a relatively new study (Jan. 2020) in the Journal of Nutrition, _Multinutrient Supplementation Increases Collagen Synthesis during Early Wound Repair in a Randomized Controlled Trial in Patients with Inguinal Hernia_, that seems to show that taking arginine, glutamine, zinc, and vitamin C can help promote collagen synthesis to help healing after hernia surgery.
I am thinking about taking these supplements starting two weeks prior to surgery.
Any docs want to weigh in? Specifically, would there be any downsides to taking the supplements, even if they don’t turn out to help?
Link:
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article-abstract/150/4/792/5695303?redirectedFrom=fulltextThanks!
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7 Replies
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Also I forgot to add this: a good quality Systematic Enzyme which might contain Nattozyme or etc. I used BioMedicLabs SerraKor-NK and have had no problems. Obviously, great for dissolving excess scar tissue as well if that is what you want.
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Sort of on topic, I expect in the future cold plasma will be utilised to aid recovery by surgeons as it can be used to increase cell migration and proliferation among other things. I believe this is still in a purely research phase as universities as of now though. I also expect plasma will eventually be applied to mesh when the companies that develop it actually decide to do something innovative for once. Everyday items like your the exterior surfaces of your car are already treated with plasma to change it’s properties to be less prone to rusting for example. Research has already been carried out to change material surfaces to be more bio-compatible and prevent biofilms forming.
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I took zinc, Vit C, Proline, Lysine, and Glutamine before. Dr. Brown commented how good/healthy my tissue looked right after surgery. While, I like Dr. Towfig, don’t see the great improvement with expensive Collagen product now making the rounds in ads on the internet these day. I believe in these basic supplements, you have named.
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@drtowfigh Thanks for interpreting the study. I didn’t know about bromelain/pineapple for fighting inflammation; I will try it — thanks @thunderrose.
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– no downsides to taking the supplements around the time of surgery
– I do recommend bromelain and other anti inflammatory supplements to my patients
– zinc, vitamin c have already been shown to augment wound healing. No study has been shown they clinically improve outcomes from hernia repair, ie, hernia recurrence. And this study also doesn’t show much. It only shows one of the 3 collagen markers changed. It has no clinical significance. -
I was concerned with minimizing swelling so I wanted papain and bromelain. I ate a lot of papaya and pineapple the week before and week after surgery, but you can also buy these as supplements. I prefer getting them from the whole foods.
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Anybody out there try anything like this to promote healing?
I plan to follow the supplement regimen in the study almost exactly, except I will be starting one week prior to surgery instead of two weeks.
Here are the supplements:
1. ArgiMent AT powder (contains 14g l-arginine, 14g l-glutamine, 500mg vitamin C, 30mg zinc), twice a day
2. An additional 750mg vitamin C, once a day
3. An additional 30mg zinc gluconate, once a day
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