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What Is Papain Urea?

Wound healing is a very complicated process, as the body needs to not only close up the wound and clean out any debris and dead tissue, it then needs to fill in areas where tissue was lost and essentially connect the skin back together. There are a variety of creams and products that can aid the body's healing process. One such treatment is papain urea.

  1. Components

    • Papain urea is made up of two different compounds: papain and urea. Papain is a protein found in papaya, and it's an enzyme. As an enzyme, its function is to help break down other proteins. Urea is another protein that is often used to break down other proteins.

    Papain-Urea Uses

    • Papain urea is often used as a topical cream. Papain-urea topical creams are often applied to open sores and wounds. They can be used for burns, cysts and other kinds of skin lesions, such as surgical wounds and carbuncles.

    Topical cream

    • Papain urea topical creams are generally made up of a mixture of oil and water and another compound, called an emulsifier. The emulsifier works to help combine together the oil and water to make a creamier base. Then papain is then extracted from papaya, and the urea is usually synthetically made, and the two are dissolved into the cream. Usually the percentage of papain and urea is fairly small in a topical cream (less than one percent).

    Mechanism of Action

    • Papain and urea work as enzymes in the break down of proteins. As a result, they are often applied to wounds in an effort to break down the dead or damaged tissue. This is a process known as chemical debridement, and it can help clean up the wound and get dead tissue out of there.

    Effects

    • Papain urea topical treatments generally has two functions. Primarily, it is there to help the wound heal more quickly. For a wound, such as a burn, to heal properly, the dead and irreversibly damaged tissue has to be removed before the wound can be closed up. Removing the dead tissue using enzymes allows the body to move on with the healing process. Secondly, usage of these creams can help prevent infection. Bacteria grow readily on dead tissue, which, being dead, simply works as a food source for it.

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