In 2002 a small study took a look at “tape occlusion” for wart removal. Participants covered their wart with duct tape for a period of up to 2 months, occasionally removing the tape and buffing the wart with a pumice stone.
Now you may have already heard of this neat little trick, it’s a pretty common old wives tail and it even listed as a treatment on www.webMD.com. But it may surprise you that the results of this study showed that duct tape was in fact successful in getting rid of the wart 85% of the time. Compared that to only 60% for cryotherapy (freezing with liquid nitrogen).
Now some might think duct tape sounds like a great option. It would hurt a whole lot less than having liquid nitrogen applied to your skin. And of course you can pick up a roll of duct tape at any local dollar bin. At the very least, it won’t work and you’ll have just put off having the cryotherapy for a few weeks.
Unfortunately if you’re an older adult looking to try this duct tape trick, the 2002 study was done only on children and younger adults, and didn’t include older adults at all. A more recent study done specifically on older adults — the median age was 54 — showed that only 21% of participants got rid of their warts entirely. Compare that to the 85% in the 2002 study — that’s a success rate of less than one quarter the original study.
Some of the researchers seem to think that the secret is in the duct tape. Traditional grey duct tape was used in the 2002 study, but clear duct tape was used in the more recent study. The difference — for our purposes, we’re not talking fashion after all — is that clear duct tape doesn’t contain rubber, which in theory could react differently with the skin and wart.
Regardless, whether you think duct tape should be kept in the tool box, or whether it has a place in the medicine cabinet, as you age you’re going to take longer to heal. So the lower success rate in the older adults study doesn’t really come as a big surprise.
Your best bet for healing like you did when you were younger, is to keep healthy with a balanced diet and regular exercise. And if a little duct tape helps you out along the way, well maybe it really is a handyman’s secret weapon!
Next Post: Heartburn Drugs Can Increase Your Risk of Getting a Hip Fracture
Previous Post: Soy: A Double-edged Sword When it Comes to Prostate Cancer
Tags: exercise, health secrets
