Abstract:
Effective and faster treatment of wounds remains a big challenge facing healthcare professionals and global economies. Diabetic foot ulcers, for example, affect about 15% of all people with diabetes during their lifetime. Such ulcers do not respond to conventional therapies, thus presenting a high risk of foot amputation to the predisposed patients. Furthermore, the available wound dressing materials are unable to fully address microbial infection, protein adsorption, and elevated amounts of exudates. Although metals have demonstrated biocompatibility, capacity to improve cellular processes and better adhesion in humans, little data is available on their role especially in herbal formulations topically used in the management of wounds. The objective of this study was to determine the concentration of manganese, copper, zinc, magnesium, and iron metals in Satureja biflora species, which have been found crucial in wound healing. The aerial plant material was collected, then dried and ground into a coarse powder. Upon acid digestion, concentrations of metals of interest were determined using the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS) technique. The results indicated that Satureja biflora contains significant quantities of selected metals. Leaves had the highest iron concentration (927.49 ± 1.79 ppm) while stems had the lowest magnesium concentration (71.64 ± 0.38 ppm). More studies involving other techniques should be carried out to validate this data for possible biomimicry applications.
