Health
Humans’ Wounds Heal Much More Slowly Than Other Mammals’
Watching wild baboons in Kenya, Akiko Matsumoto-Oda, an evolutionary biologist and primatologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan, had a front-row seat to the violence between these monkeys, especially the males.
“I was struck by how frequently they sustained injuries,” she said, “and, even more, by how rapidly they recovered — even from seemingly severe wounds.”
Compared with her own experiences with nicks and cuts, the baboons’ ability to heal seemed like a superpower.
In a study published on Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dr. Matsumoto-Oda and her colleagues compared the healing rates of humans, chimpanzees, monkeys and mice. They found that human wounds took more than twice as long to heal as wounds of any of the other mammals. Our slow healing may be a result of an evolutionary trade-off we made long ago, when we shed fur in favor of naked, sweaty skin that keeps us cool.
When possible, the researchers wanted to study healing in a way that was less violent and more controlled than watching wild baboons.
To measure human healing, they recruited 24 patients who were having skin tumors removed at the University of the Ryukyus Hospital. To gather data on chimpanzees, which are some of our closest animal relatives, researchers observed five captive chimps at the Kumamoto Sanctuary of the Kyoto University Wildlife Research Center, which houses animals formerly used in pharmaceutical research. The chimps’ wounds, like those of wild baboons, mostly came from tiffs between the animals.
The study’s other primate subjects, all kept at the Kenya Institute of Primate Research, included olive baboons, Sykes’ monkeys and vervet monkeys. Researchers anesthetized the monkeys, surgically wounded them and then monitored their recovery. “As a field researcher, I personally believe that invasive studies should be minimized as much as possible,” said Dr. Matsumoto-Oda, who noted that bite wounds on wild baboons are often similar in size to the surgical wounds in the study, but deeper.
Finally, to compare humans and primates with more distantly related mammals, researchers anesthetized and surgically wounded mice and rats.
Based on her field observations, Dr. Matsumoto-Oda was prepared to see humans healing more slowly than the other animals. The 24 people regrew skin at about a quarter of a millimeter per day, on average.
What surprised Dr. Matsumoto-Oda more was the consistency between the healing rates of the animal subjects, including chimpanzees. There was no significant difference in the speedy skin regrowth among different primates, which grew about 0.62 millimeters of new skin per day, or between primates and rodents. Humans were the clear outliers.
Elaine Fuchs, a stem cell biologist at the Rockefeller University who studies skin growth and repair and was not involved in the new research, said the results were what she would have expected. That’s because skin healing depends on hair.
Each hair grows from a hair follicle, which also houses stem cells. Normally, those stem cells just make more hair. But when called upon, they can grow new skin instead. “When the epidermis is wounded, as in most kinds of scratches and scrapes, it’s really the hair-follicle stem cells that do the repair,” Dr. Fuchs said.
Furry animals are covered in follicles, which help quickly close up wounds in mice or monkeys. By comparison, “human skin has very puny hair follicles,” Dr. Fuchs said. And our ancestors lost many of those follicles, packing their skin with sweat glands instead. Sweat glands also have stem cells, but they’re much less efficient at repairing wounds, Dr. Fuchs said.
Why did we make that trade during evolution, giving up so much of our hair and its protective properties? The glands that make the watery, salty sweat that dampens our shirts on a hot day are called eccrine glands. Most furry mammals have them only in certain places, mainly the soles of their paws. But human ancestors went all-in on sweat — modern humans have millions of sweat glands all over our bodies, and they’re about 10 times denser than those of chimpanzees.
“We evolved to cool by sweating profusely,” said Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. Our abundant sweat glands and lack of fur let our ancestors engage in physical activity in hot environments, Dr. Lieberman said, and cooled the machinery of our big brains.
The benefits of trading hair for sweat must have outweighed the costs. Dr. Matsumoto-Oda and her co-authors speculate that social support among prehistoric humans might have helped wounded people stay alive, despite our slower healing. (Or maybe they had ways to treat wounds, like orangutans and chimps seem to.)
“The evolutionary disadvantage is that wound healing is slowed,” Dr. Fuchs said, but humans also gained evolutionary advantages by losing hair.
“They can put on a coat if they need to,” she added.
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Americans consume foods every day that are marketed as “healthy,” when they could be quietly destroying their health, one doctor warns.
Dr. Mark Hyman, physician and co-founder of Function Health in California, says that much of America’s daily diet is filled with unhealthy ingredients.
“The amount of refined starches and sugars that are everywhere is just staggering to me, given what we know about how harmful they are,” he shared in an interview with Fox News Digital. “I don’t think people really understand.”
Hyman, author of the new book “Food Fix Uncensored,” said he’s “astounded” by what people are eating, especially for breakfast.
“People just eat sugar for breakfast,” he said. “They have muffins, they have bagels, they have croissants, they have sugar-sweetened coffees and teas.”
Dr. Mark Hyman is the author of the new book “Food Fix Uncensored.” (Function Health; Little, Brown Spark)
In addition to the traditionally sweet options for breakfast, some cereal brands and breakfast staples have adopted new “protein-packed” menu items and products, following health trends that encourage eating more protein.
“Highly processed food is not food.”
“Now, we’re seeing this halo of protein in certain things,” Hyman said, mentioning that many protein smoothies are “full of sugar.”
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The doctor also noted that some popular cereals are now marketed as having protein in them. “My joke is, if it has a health claim on the label, it’s definitely bad for you,” he said.
Instead of starting the day with a “quick fix” or processed food, Hyman suggests choosing whole sources of protein and fat for breakfast, adding that “if there’s a little carbohydrate in there, it’s fine.”
More products marketed as “high protein” have cropped up on supermarket shelves. (iStock)
For his own breakfast, Hyman said he has a protein shake with whey protein, avocado and frozen berries. Eggs and avocados are also a great protein-and-fat combo option, he added.
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“It’s not that complicated — people need to just think about their breakfast not being dessert,” he said. “No wonder we’re in this cycle of obesity and diabetes. One in three teenage kids now has type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes. That’s just criminal.”
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Instead of counting calories and being in a caloric deficit as a way to lose weight and stay healthy, Hyman instead suggests focusing on how certain foods make you feel and how they impact your health.
“When you look at the way in which different types of calories affect your biology, you can just choose what you’re eating, and then you don’t have to worry about how much,” he told Fox News Digital.
In addition to the traditionally sweet options for breakfast, some cereal brands and breakfast staples have adopted new “protein-packed” menu items and products. (iStock)
“For example, if you eat a diet that doesn’t cause your insulin to spike — which is low in starch and sugar, higher in protein and fat — you won’t develop those swings in blood sugar, you won’t develop the spikes in insulin, you won’t deposit hungry fat … You will break that cycle.”
People are more likely to “self-regulate when they eat real food” instead of processed foods, which “bypasses the normal mechanisms of satiety, fullness and brain chemistry,” according to Hyman.
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“Ultraprocessed food and junk food or highly processed food is not food,” he said. “It doesn’t support the health and well-being of an organism. It doesn’t do that. It does the opposite.”
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Small fragments of plastic were found in the tumors of most prostate cancer patients, according to a new study from NYU Langone Health.
In past studies, microplastics have been found in almost every human organ and in bodily fluids, but their impact on human health still isn’t fully understood.
The researchers analyzed tissue samples from 10 patients with prostate cancer who underwent surgery to remove the entire organ.
Using visuals of both benign samples and tumor samples, as well as specialized equipment, the scientists identified plastic particles in 90% of the tumor samples and 70% of benign tissue samples, according to the study press release.
In past studies, microplastics were found in almost every single human organ along with bodily fluids, even the placenta. (iStock)
The cancerous tissue contained on average more than double the amount of plastic as healthy prostate tissue samples, the study found. This equates to about 40 micrograms of plastic per gram of tissue compared to 16 micrograms.
Researchers avoided contaminating the samples with other plastics by substituting standard tools with those made of aluminum, cotton and other non-plastic material, the release noted.
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The scientists say this is the first direct evidence linking microplastics to prostate cancer.
“By uncovering yet another potential health concern posed by plastic, our findings highlight the need for stricter regulatory measures to limit the public’s exposure to these substances, which are everywhere in the environment,” said senior study author Vittorio Albergamo, assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in the release.
Using visuals of both benign samples and tumor samples, as well as specialized equipment, the scientists identified plastic particles in 90% of the tumor samples and 70% of benign tissue samples. (iStock)
The study findings were presented during the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco on Feb. 26.
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“What is most striking is not that microplastics were detected, but that they were found embedded within tumor tissue itself,” Dr. David Sidransky, oncologist and medical advisor at SpotitEarly, a startup that offers an at-home breath-based test to detect early-stage cancer, told Fox News Digital.
“While complete avoidance is unrealistic, people can take practical steps to reduce exposure.”
“We already know microplastics are present in water, air, blood and even placental tissue. Their detection in prostate tumors suggests systemic distribution and long-term bioaccumulation,” added Maryland-based Sidransky, who was not involved in the study.
Study limitations
Albergamo cautioned that a larger sample is needed to confirm the findings. Additionally, Sidransky noted that the presence of microplastics alone does not prove they cause cancer.
“Tumors can act as ‘biologic sinks,’ meaning they may accumulate circulating particles simply because of altered vasculature and permeability,” he said.
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A key unanswered question, according to the doctor, is whether microplastics are biologically active in ways that “promote DNA damage, immune modulation or chronic inflammation within the prostate.”
About one in eight men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most actionable step men can take is appropriate screening and early detection, according to doctors. (iStock)
For those concerned about microplastics, Sidransky offered some insights.
“I believe the appropriate response is curiosity, not panic, and a commitment to understand more,” he said.
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“While complete avoidance is unrealistic, people can take practical steps to reduce exposure, such as minimizing heating food in plastic containers, reducing bottled water consumption when possible, and favoring glass or stainless steel alternatives.”
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The most actionable step men can take, however, is getting appropriate screenings to help ensure early detection, according to the doctor. Screening discussions should be individualized based on age, family history and other risk factors.
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