Can cat saliva really kill bacteria?
Have you ever heard such a rumor that when a cat is injured, the cat will keep licking the wound, and after a period of time, the wound will heal. So is this really the case? Does cat saliva really contain bactericidal ingredients? Let's take a look.
First of all, the main component of cat saliva is water, which also contains a lot of protein and enzyme components, but unlike humans, the cat's salivary glands cannot produce amylase, so it cannot degrade the starch in food into single Sugar enters the stomach for digestion. This is why the main food in the cat bowls is still mainly meat, because cats are not good at digesting grass food. There is also a bactericidal enzyme called lysozyme.
Lysozyme, also known as muramidase, is an alkaline enzyme capable of hydrolyzing mucopolysaccharides in pathogenic bacteria. This enzyme is not only found in cat saliva, but also in human tissues, egg whites from birds and poultry, and mammalian body fluids. These ingredients have a natural bactericidal effect and have the same effect as many cat products such as special cat medicines.
Then you may think that the cat's saliva can not be sterilized, why do some wounds get worse the more they lick? The main reason for this is that although the cat's saliva has a certain bactericidal effect, it does not have a very good anti-inflammatory effect. If the cat is left alone after being injured and relies on his own licking to restore the wound, it will only cause the wound to become infected and cause the wound to fester and become inflamed. This makes the cat even more dangerous.
Therefore, if the cat encounters some relatively large wounds, the correct way is to help the cat to clean up the wound in time. After washing it with normal saline, wrap it with gauze. In order to prevent the cat from licking the wound, you can bring the cat with an Elizabethan ring, etc. cat supplies to help them recover faster.
Finally, if your cat is injured, you should add more high-protein food to the cat's bowl to strengthen the cat's system and reduce the intake of raw meat as much as possible.