Diabetes is a chronic disease characterized by high blood sugar levels. In diabetic patients, the wound healing process tends to be slow even if it is only for minor wounds. It occurs due to disruption in the wound healing process, thereby prolonging the inflammatory process that occurs, likewise with wounds that occur in the oral cavity. Wounds in the oral cavity such as thrush tend to heal longer in diabetes patients, so they need medication to help speed up the healing process of mouth ulcer. The research team from the Faculty of Dental Medicine, Universitas Airlangga developed a natural ingredient that is well known to the public, liquid smoke from coconut shells for canker sore in diabetes patients. People generally use this material as a food preservative such as meat, fish, tofu and meatballs.
Apart from being a food preservative, the benefits of liquid coconut shell smoke are also proven to heal burns. After further investigation and study, liquid smoke turned out to have many ingredients that are very useful to help heal wounds, such as phenols and flavonoids which have antioxidant, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties. In addition to burns, coconut shell liquid smoke has also been studied, has the potential to accelerate the healing mouth ulcer. The results of these studies were published in two international journals in 2019, by suggesting that coconut shell liquid smoke can suppress inflammation and stimulate collagen formation so that the healing process of canker sores is faster.
Research on the potential of coconut shell liquid smoke for thrush is continuing. In 2019, research was conducted to know the role of coconut shell liquid smoke in the inflammatory process that occurs in thrush. The study was conducted by comparing the response of macrophages after therapy with coconut shell liquid smoke and benzydamine HCl. Macrophage responses can be seen through the expressions released at the time of inflammation, namely TNF-á and NF-kB.
The results published on European Journal of Dentistry in 2020, show that coconut shell liquid smoke has the effect of increasing the recruitment of macrophages to the canker sores and decreasing the expression of TNF-á and NF-kB. The effect of coconut shell liquid smoke on TNF-á expression was 72.4%, while benzydamine HCl was 33.2%. The decrease in the expression of TNF-a and NF-kB causes the inflammation process to be shorter in mouth ulcer. The results of this study indicate that coconut shell liquid smoke can affect macrophages by reducing the expression of TNF-á and NF-kB so that it inhibits inflammation better than benzydamine HCl. Therefore, coconut shell liquid smoke can be used as a mouth ulcer therapy.
Author: Meircurius Dwi Condro Surboyo, drg., M.Kes
Link:
Surboyo, M., Mahdani, FY, Ernawati, DS, Sarasati, A., & Rezkita, F. (2020). The Macrophage Responses during Diabetic Oral Ulcer Healing by Liquid Coconut Shell Smoke: An Immunohistochemical Analysis. European journal of dentistry, 14(3), 410–414. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1712776
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7440958/
