Bedsore Skin

ulcers, because it ensures that they get the appropriate nutrient intake every day.

A multivitamin/mineral supplement is especially important for older people who are confined to bed or to wheelchairs. They are frequently defi­cient in a wide array of vitamins.

Vitamin C Plays a Major Role

One of the most common single vitamin deficiencies among the elderly is vitamin C. Too little of this vitamin opens the door to

Vitamin C

thinning skin, capil­lary fragility, and, consequently, bedsores.

Some studies even indicate that vitamin C deficiency may be the key nutritional factor in bedsore development. Brazilian researchers found that hospital patients with bedsores had lower levels of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, than those patients without bedsores. Fortunately, studies have also shown that supplements of vitamin C can significantly aid in the healing of bedsores. Doctors discovered that patients with bed­sores who took a regimen of vitamin C, along with zinc and arginine, healed faster than those who took supplements without these nutrients.

Vitamin C deficiency can double your healing time, doctor routinely put their patients who are being treated for or who are at risk for pressure ulcers on 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day. Vitamin C won’t help if there is no deficiency, but the extra vitamin won’t hurt, either.

Zinc Speeds Healing

Like vitamin C, zinc has been linked in studies to preventing bedsores and helping them heal.

Zinc Food Source

If there is a zinc deficiency, healing time is retarded by 50 percent. Like vitamin C, supplemental zinc won’t do any good if there is no deficiency. But zinc deficiency is so common that I routinely supplement it as well.

The Daily Value for zinc is 15 milligrams, an amount that you can get from either foods or supplements. To add some superior food sources of zinc to your diet, try eating more seafood and shellfish, wheat germ, and whole- grain breads and cereals.

Clearly, the quality of mattresses has improved since the rule of King Tut. Bedsores, also known as pressure ulcers, have less to do with beds and lots to do with nutrition, say the experts. And that, sadly, is something that can still be pretty poor even in this day and age, especially among the elderly.

The bottom line is that a malnourished person is predisposed to developing a pressure ulcer. Researchers has researched and written extensively on the nutrition-pressure ulcer connection. In fact, the more malnourished a person is, the more severe the ulcer. They believe that malnutrition may be the most significant component in the development of the type of pressure ulcer commonly seen in Americans today.