Positive Health Online

In a study, published in April 2025, the conclusion was that the wound healing process in humans occurred about three times slower than in other primates. The question was asked why apes in the wild healed so quickly, compared to humans, from injuries sustained in a serious physical fight.

To see just how slow this is, Akiko Matsumoto-Oda at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan and her colleagues turned to four other primate species: vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), Sykes’ monkeys (Cercopithecus albogularis), olive baboons (Papio anubis) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). The researchers anaesthetised at least five of each kind of primate, shaved off a small patch of their hair and created a circular wound 40 millimetres across, which they treated with an antibiotic ointment and covered with gauze for a day to protect against infection. Inspection of the wounds were carried out every 24 hours.

This study is clearly not about apes ‘in the wild’, but about laboratory animals!
This study is clearly not about the natural healing process because the wounds of the animals are being treated in the way the medical profession prescribes it.

The manner in which the study is carried out can in no way deliver any answers on the question asked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wound_Healing_edit.jpg

Author: Raquel Baranow - on Wikipedia

Healing progression of a deep laceration wound on the shin with sutures over a five-week period. Repeated photographs of the same hiking injury as it healed over the course of 5 weeks.

Next, Matsumoto-Oda and her colleagues looked at 24 patients at the University of the Ryukyus Hospital after they had skin tumours removed, finding that these wounds healed at a rate three times slower than the wounds inflicted on the other primates.

The study compares inflicted wounds on a healthy skin with wounds that are the result of the removal of a skin tumour. The presence of a skin tumour suggests that the tissue is diseased, which means that the surrounding skin area cannot be considered healthy.

The study ignores the cause of the existence of the wounds in two different study groups as well as ignoring the state of the tissue in which healing takes place.

The researchers also conducted studies on mice and rats, and found pretty much the same healing rate as in the non-human primates. This suggests that there may be an evolutionarily optimal healing rate for most mammals, but not for humans, says Matsumoto-Oda. “Most importantly, we found that chimpanzees exhibited the same wound-healing rate as other non-human primates, which implies that the slowed wound-healing seen in humans likely evolved after the divergence from our common ancestor with chimpanzees,” says Matsumoto-Oda.

This study does not contain any observation or experimental part that allows such a conclusion. It is simply an assumption based on a theoretical connection, not on scientific data, between what is being observed in the study and what is being thought of as a possible explanation, which is rooted in the belief of how evolution took place.

Why humans don’t have an optimal healing rate for skin wounds is not known – indeed, because it is only an assumption! –  but she says it may be linked to how early humans adapted to hot environments. “The slower wound healing rate in humans may be linked to evolutionary changes, such as the reduction in body hair,” says Matsumoto-Oda. “A higher hair density leads to an increase in stem cell numbers, which results in faster healing.”

The theory that the lower density of hair in humans, in general, is the result of an adaptation to a warmer environment is being put forward as if it is a proven fact. This is not the case, and it also appears a bit of nonsensical too. – This would mean that Eskimos, who did not have to adapt to a warmer environment, should be as hairy as all the other non-human primates.

The theory that a higher density of hair follicles leads to a quicker wound healing is being put forward as if it is a proven fact. – This means that in humans a head wound would heal three times quicker than a wound anywhere else on the body. There is no actual scientific indication or proof for this.

• It is not because the media claims something, that it is true;
• It is not because an expert claims something, that it is true;
• It is not because a team of experts claim to have discovered something, that it is true;
• It is not because a team of researchers come to a conclusion, that it is true.

Truth is the quality of being true, genuine, actual, or factual.
Truth is something that is being considered as real by a person or a group.
A scientific truth is simply a picture of reality formed by the knowledge and insight present at a specific time, relying on convictions, experiences and emotions.

When you want to learn something about a natural process, all you have to do is to observe nature. I am not in a position to observe animals in the wild who are wounded and whose healing process will take several weeks. But when certain animals are permanently present in your life then we are in a position to learn something from their nature. We are talking about a natural process. The further these animals are removed from their natural environment, the more we ‘take care’ of them, the less natural the process that we are observing will be. Dogs and cats who have a lot of freedom at home to follow their natural instincts may be a good source of information.

In the first place we need to realise that our wound care with antiseptics, dressings, stitches, antibiotics and so on are an interference in that natural process. When you observe an animal’s reaction to your best intended care plan, you will notice that they do anything in their power to obstruct your efforts. The dressing must be removed. Antiseptic is licked of. They like it best if you stay away from them. Fine. Let’s take a look at what nature does with regards to these wounds.

The animal licks the wound and nibbles at it. The wound remains open to the air. Lots of resting becomes routine. Blood is being licked up. The wound bleeds a bit, stops bleeding, and leaks again some time later. The wound also inflames, but the animal takes care of that too, resulting in a spontaneous healing of the inflammation soon after. The wound not only heals quickly, but also completely. The skin recovers and only shows a narrow scar. This is no different for an open wound, which I as a doctor would consider to be needing stitches. But I observe that the wound heals perfectly and doesn’t result in a wide ugly scar. The observation of the natural healing process teaches me that, in animals, a complete healing of skin wounds occurs without any human intervention.

The next stage of ‘the investigation’ is to look at how the natural healing process happens in humans. For this, it is necessary that I do not interfere in that process. I allow my skin wound to remain open, only clean it with streaming water and that’s it. I observe that the wound remains moist for a while before it finally dries up. Sometimes an inflammation occurs, which heals by itself. The wound heals quickly and completely. I don’t see any difference between the healing I observed in the dog and in myself. And when I am confronted by a wound a doctor recommends stitching for, allowing the natural healing process to take place I observe that no excessive scar tissue is being formed. It heals perfectly without my or anyone else’s interference.

My experiment shows me that wound healing without my interference happens much faster and less problematic than with the use of antiseptics, dressings, stitches and antibiotics. I also do not observe a difference in the rate of healing between another mammal and a human being, as long as this animal and the human being is able to follow natural instincts, is free ‘to allow nature to do its own thing’.

What to do with scientific research, especially when it appears as if their conclusion does not match our own observations? Belief, conviction and ideology – considered to be opposites to science – can’t be disentangled from scientific research. A researcher won’t ever investigate anything that he doesn’t believe in. And when he does, he’ll do it with the intention to contradict it. And the chance that under those conditions it will be contradicted is very high, because he will define the scope and objectives of the investigation – consciously or not – in such a way that his conviction will be the end result. And when the end result deviates from this, he will doubt it, not believe it and let it go. Scientists are also human beings. Their view of the world is determined, like in all other human beings, by their convictions and beliefs.

The scope and objectives of the afore mentioned study does not allow answers to be discovered on the questions posed. The question was why the wound healing in animals in the wild occurred so much quicker than it does in humans. Hence, this is something one has already observed or something one assumes, believes to be true. There is no more information on this to be discovered by studying the wound healing in laboratory animals who are being treated medically. Those are not compatible conditions with ‘the wild’.

In this study, one observes what one already knows, which is that wounds heal faster in primates compared to humans. This observation – that’s all it is! – is being linked to a totally different study about the difference in hair follicles between primates and humans. One simply assumes that one has to be linked to the other. This is not the way scientific research should be done.

Unfortunately, medical scientific research today is always being conducted in this way and conclusions are being drawn in this manner, which always extend beyond the framework of the investigation. That is how a connection is made between a high cholesterol level in the blood and heart and circulation problems. That is how one pretends to find the cause of inflammations and infections in invisible elements (bacteria, viruses, fungi). That is how one links a primary tumour to what they call metastases. That is how a connection is made between exposure to direct sunlight and skin cancer. And on and on and on!

The media is being used by the medical profession to make these proclamations known. No journalist is capable to criticise the structure of the study or the conclusions drawn, to question the method used or the interpretation of the results. Hence, whatever the media puts out as ‘truth’ is nothing more than the belief, the conviction, the medical profession wants us to subscribe to. In the afore mentioned study the attention is nicely being diverted away from the real important issue, which is the difference in results between the natural wound healing process (in the wild) and the medical intervention wound healing (our medical wound care). They tell us that the difference is not the result of different wound care but is the result of evolution. Another shortcoming of creation! What a blundering idiot God is. Look at how many design faults are present in human beings! In other words, the pinnacle of creation turns out to be the weakest link.

All of this is part of how the media is portraying science as a whole. Nature requires our urgent help everywhere. The climate doesn’t know what it is unleashing. The sunlight that reaches the earth has to be modified by us. The earth needs saving by us. Animal species need saving by us. We have so many organs that are not really necessary and that are only causing health problems. Remove your appendix as a prevention. Remove your gallbladder. Remove your tonsils. If you don’t want to suffer with breast cancer then prevent it by having them removed. Do the same with regards to your womb from the moment you have no procreation desire anymore. Change your sex in order to make you mentally healthy. We have to believe that bugs exist only to make us ill and that only the medical profession can protect us against this threat by the use of vaccinations. Protect yourself from coming in contact with such bugs by staying away from animals in the wild, even though no scientific investigation has ever found any proof that, what they have named, bugs spread from animals to humans or from humans to humans. These are all ‘truths’ we must believe in!

Where are the studies?
How are they being set up?
What are the convictions behind them? What are they trying ‘to prove’?
Are the conclusions compatible with the research?
When and how does a journalist investigate the message in front of him?

What Did We Learn?

We learned that the natural wound healing is faster and more complete than wound healing by medical intervention.

We learned that the human skin is different from that of non-human primates and that science has not yet discovered the evolutionary explanation for this.

We learned that scientific research, constantly referred to in the media, is due a significant and critical overhaul.