Examining the relationship between psychological stress, matrix metalloproteinases and healing in diabetic foot ulcers

该项目旨在研究精神状态如何影响糖尿病患者长期足部伤口的愈合机制。研究表明，压力会影响对伤口正常愈合至关重要的酶。糖尿病患者容易出现足部伤口，需要数月或数年才能愈合。由于糖尿病患者已被证明经历高水平的痛苦，该项目感兴趣的是这种痛苦是否有助于愈合问题。我们将直接测量与伤口愈合相关的酶的水平，看看这是否与患者报告的心理痛苦程度以及他们唾液中的应激激素皮质醇水平有关。这可能意味着我们的研究结果能够解释心理因素如何影响生理问题。这一发现对于向这类患者提供的护理类型很重要，因为他们的心理健康可能对其身体健康至关重要，这可能意味着在提供常规护理的同时提供心理帮助。这种干预可能会提高糖尿病患者的治愈率，降低他们的痛苦程度。

This project aims to investigate how state of mind affects healing mechanisms in diabetic patients with long-term foot wounds. Research has shown that stress can have an effect on enzymes that are important for the normal healing of wounds. Diabetic patients are prone to foot wounds that can take months or years to heal. As diabetic patients have been shown to experience high levels of distress this project is interested in whether this distress contributes to problems with healing. We will directly measure levels of enzymes relevant to healing in the wounds and see whether this is related to how much psychological distress is reported by the patients and the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva. This may mean that our findings are able to explain how psychological factors can have an impact on physiological problems. Such a finding would be important for the type of care given to this group of patients as their mental health may be crucial to their physical health which may mean the provision of psychological help in conjunction with usual care. Such an intervention could result in improved healing rates and lower levels of distress in people with diabetes.