Will eating soy sauce really make the wound turn black?

If you have a wound on an exposed part of the skin, you will definitely hear people repeatedly emphasize that you should never eat soy sauce as it will easily leave scars. Many people also think that their blackened wounds are caused by eating soy sauce, but in fact there is no fundamental connection between the two. The blackening of wounds is related to the melanocytes in our body, which in turn is related to our genetic genes, hormone levels, etc. It is not a single aspect.

Methods/Steps

What makes us black?

In our skin, there is a group of little guys called "melanocytes". They use "tyrosine", an amino acid in the human body, as raw material every day, and produce "melanin" through the catalysis of "tyrosinase" and a series of other complex chemical reactions. Melanin is the main determinant of our skin color. Its amount is affected by factors such as genetic genes, hormone levels and ultraviolet radiation.

Can eating soy sauce make us darker?

Soy sauce does contain tyrosine, but it is not the only food that contains tyrosine, nor is it even the leader among foods rich in tyrosine.

The tyrosine content of soy sauce with different production processes, types and brands may vary slightly, but it is usually not necessarily higher than white milk or soy milk, and is far inferior to coix seed, which is known to have whitening effects.

It can be seen that the amount of tyrosine in food does not actually have as much impact on skin color as we imagined.

In fact, the abundance of raw materials obviously does not mean high yield of finished products. Even if I consume a large amount of tyrosine, the melanin production line in my body will not work overtime and will not necessarily form more melanin.

Then some people may have new doubts: Does soy sauce contain catalysts that promote the synthesis of melanin?

In fact, the most important catalyst in the melanin production process is tyrosinase, which cannot tolerate strong acid. Regardless of whether soy sauce contains tyrosinase, it will be inactivated by stomach acid when entering the stomach and lose its biological activity that can catalyze chemical reactions.

Therefore, soy sauce does not contain any raw materials that are particularly rich in melanin, nor can it promote the synthesis of melanin. Eating soy sauce will not make us darker.

People with wounds cannot eat eggs, milk, fish or shrimp?

There is a saying in traditional medicine that some foods are "fattening" and can make a person's skin "fatten" like steamed buns made from leavened dough, swelling up high above the skin surface. As this saying spread, it gradually evolved into: if a person with a wound eats "hairy" food, it will leave ugly raised scars, so it is necessary to avoid eating it. Eggs, milk, fish and shrimp are representative foods.

So what does "发" mean?

In fact, this is most likely an empirical judgment of the ancients about "urticaria", because the typical skin lesions of urticaria are flaky wheals that are raised on the surface of the skin and accompanied by severe itching. The most common cause of urticaria is allergies caused by the inability to fully digest high-protein foods. Eggs, milk, fish and shrimp are all high-protein foods. People who cannot tolerate them may induce or aggravate wheals after eating them.

But raised hives and raised scars have completely different mechanisms.

Generally speaking, the repair of skin injury is initiated by the dermis. As long as the damage is limited to the epidermis and does not reach the dermis, no scar will be formed. But even if the dermis is injured, some people will only be left with a thin line after the injury, while others will be left with thick, raised, dark red scars.

This is not because you ate something wrong during the wound healing period, but an innate physical condition, which is medically called "scar constitution."

For people who do not have a scar-prone constitution, even if they eat a lot of eggs and milk, only a thin line will be left after the wound heals. For people who have a scar-prone constitution, even if they do not eat eggs, milk and other foods, as long as the wound is deep into the dermis, they will still leave an ugly raised scar. For the latter, it is more practical to be careful to avoid injuries than to spend time figuring out how to avoid certain foods.

If I didn't eat something wrong, why did my wound leave a black mark after it healed?

When the skin is inflamed, in order to resist the invasion of external microorganisms such as bacteria, our body will release some inflammatory mediators locally to activate the local immune response. These inflammatory mediators can stimulate melanocytes and lead to localized pigmentation.

Therefore, even if we do not eat soy sauce at all, if the wound heals slowly and the inflammatory stimulation exists for a long time, it is still possible to leave pigmentation, making the local skin color always darker than the surrounding normal skin color.

Since melanin is also metabolized with the metabolism of skin surface cells, this pigmentation usually fades over time. It's just that this process will be very slow, sometimes even taking several years.

If you think melanin metabolism is too slow, you should not randomly avoid certain foods!

Among the various nutrients needed by the human body, vitamin C can promote the metabolism of melanin, vitamin E can reduce the formation of melanin, niacin can reduce the skin's sensitivity to ultraviolet rays and prevent suntanning... These elements exist in different foods. Only by having a comprehensive and balanced diet can you take advantage of these good things.