HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

thiS week: For a cut to heal . . .

ON AVERAGE, a small cut to the skin will take two to five days to heal on the surface, but, underneath, the process of knitting the wound together could last for weeks or even months, says Professor Richard White, a specialist in wound healing at Plymouth University.

‘A clean cut — where you can directly press together the sides — will always heal faster than one where there is torn or missing tissue,’ he explains.

How you treat the wound can help. ‘The cells involved in healing travel faster when the skin is kept moist than if it’s left to dry out and scar,’ adds Professor White. That means covering it with a dressing or plaster.

Intriguingly, a new study by the Medical Research Council in Cambridge showed cuts that occurred at night, between 8pm and 8am, took on average 28 days to heal, compared with 17 days for those in the day.

This may be because our bodies evolved to heal fastest during the day, when injuries were more likely to occur.