Healing and H-potential

[pioneer]

Several years ago, I had some minor surgery, which required a couple of stitches. I did some of my own doctoring, during the healing process, and would pour hydrogen peroxide on the wound, to keep it sterile. What I noticed was that the peroxide would foam in places that where the wound was in the process of healing. As time went on, the amount of foaming decreased, with only the holes caused by the stictches, causing some residual foaming.

 

Hydrogen peroxide is unstable in acid solutions and will decompose to give off O2. From this, one might conclude the healing wound, was more acidic than the surrounding healthy tissue, As the wound healed, the pH increased back to the level of the healthy tissue. Based on these simple observations, one can conclude that the healing process, at least in terms of cuts, is associated with an increase in the local H-potential.

[insane_alien]

or it could be various enzymes involved in the healing process.

 

hydrogen peroxide will fizz if you drop it onto a suitable catalyst. does that mean the catalyst is acidic? no. not really, it could be copper dust.

[John Cuthber]

My word, what a lot of tosh.

For a a start, H2O2 is more stable in weakly acid solution than in alkaline conditions so the whole idea is base over apex.

A more sensible reason for the foaming is the presence of catalase in the blood. It's there specifically to destroy peroxides because they are toxic.

Blood is, incidentally, faintly alkaline, but not strongly enough to markedly raise the decomposition rate of peroxide.

Why persist in this weird idea about H potential?

[DrDNA]

Pioneer,

 

Blood cells, other cells and certain bacteria have an enzyme (catalase) that dissociates H2O2.

A wound contains a lot of blood cells and damaged cells that leak the catalase. When H2O2 contacts the catalase, it rapidly turns it into O2 and water. These are the bubbles you see.

 

http://www.h2o2.com/h2o2update/pgarticles/tinybubbles.html

 

Anerobic bacteria (many of which are pathogens) do not have the enzyme to convert the peroxide into water and oxygen, so it kills them. This sterile environment promotes wound healing.

 

Regarding your hypothesis on wound healing and acid. I believe that you are missing a cause and effect relationship here. If you have any data to support it, I would certainly be interested in reading it.

[pioneer]

Why persist in this weird idea about H potential?

 

Hydrogen potential is an artifact of H being covalently bonded to a highly electronegative atom. Water for example, although showing a dipole potential of equal and opposite charge, is net electrophilic via the hydrogen potential. The nucleophilic potential on the oxygen side of the dipole, is lower due to the high electronegativity.

 

Look at it this way, if the potential on both sides of the dipole were the same, the water molecule would get rid of the potential internally. It would not try to store a state of charge separation, when the orbitals allow easy electron movement. The negative side of the dipole is stabilized on the oxygen end, causing the H to carry the burden of the potential.

 

An easier molecule to see net hydrogen potential is HCl. This is a strong acid and a weak base. The charge dipole is equal and opposite, but this molecules is highly electrophilic. It is not a balance of electrophilc and nucleophilic potentials as expected by the balanced dipole charge. The same is true of water. It is also hydrogen covalently bonded to one of the most highly electronegative atoms. The bottom line is equal and opposite dipole charge does not mean, the electrophilic and nucleophilic potentials are equal.

 

The current chemistry of life, assumes a balance of electrophilic and nucleophilic potentials within hydrogen bonds. This assumption is erronoeus. If you use the correct assumption, it is possible to define everything in the cell, in terms of its residual hydrogen potential. This simplifies the cell by an order of magnitude and gets rid of the statistical uncertainty needed to compensate for the erroneous assumption.

 

One simple experiment that can show that neutral water has a net electrophilic potential, is to compare Fe corrosion in water compared to dry air. The water acts as a catalyst increasing the rate of oxidation. The water is making the oxidation easier. If we add acid (more H-potential) the corrosion rate goes up. If we add base the rate goes down. If we compare this to dry air, one needs to use basic water to get the same rate as dry air. Or one needs to add OH- to reduce the electrophilic (hydrogen) potential of water to get the same corrosion rate.

 

Based on the assumption of the H carrying the burden of potential, if hydrogen bonding hydrogen can't form hydrogen bonds or they are unable to form perfect hydrogen bonds, that means residual potential. That is the nature of life. The structures define configurational H-potential. The easiest to see is the DNA, it has 1-2 hydrogen within every base pair within the double helix, which can not form a hydrogen bond or they need to share with another H. This causes the DNA to store H-potential. That means it is electrophilic. So inspite of the negative phosphate groups on the DNA, the DNA still attract the negatively charged tri-phosphates.

 

Regarding your hypothesis on wound healing and acid. I believe that you are missing a cause and effect relationship here. If you have any data to support it, I would certainly be interested in reading it.

 

I stand corrected on that. I have been a little under the weather due to much weather. We had 16 inches of rain early in the week and it is still raining. Luckily the drainage was well designed, but I have a leak in me ceiling. But like the Beatles said, "I'm fixing a hole, where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering, where it will go...."

[DrDNA]

Well, "There's a hole in my head where the wind blows in....." I can't remember who sang that....ELO?

[John Cuthber]

Well, I agree with this bit "Hydrogen potential is an artifact " but I'm not sure about the rest. As I have pointed out before your theory is arbitrary and produces (so far as I can see) no testable hypotheses. It is, therefore, not science.

[DrDNA]

I believe you can easily test the wound healing hypothesis by creating several wounds (ouch!) and adding sterile solutions of acidic water vs control (neutral water). I'm not sure what kind of numbers you would need for confidence, but I'm not gonna do it............

[insane_alien]

maybe pioneer will volunteer to be covered in cuts we can apply the acid and neutral (and alkaline to be rigorous) solutions to those cuts. it should probably be an hourly application to keep reasonably constant concentrations.

[DrDNA]

Maybe you missed your calling Alien...........there is probably a place for you at Guantanamo......