Washing out your nose with a spray or spout of salt water is safe and might even get you back to work sooner after a cold or acute sinus infection. However, there is not enough evidence to show that it can reduce your symptoms significantly, according to a new research review.
The three studies in the review included small numbers of patients and varied widely in their details, “which means small beneficial effects may be missed,” said lead author David King, MD, of the University of Queensland, in Australia.
One study found that people were more likely to return to work sooner after using the nose washes, and there was some intriguing evidence that nasal washes might reduce antibiotic prescriptions among those who seek the saltwater treatment.
“Nasal irrigation with saline is a safe treatment that may be mildly beneficial to some patients, though the existing evidence is too limited to recommend it as a standard treatment,” King said.
“It is quite amazing that such a common treatment for a very common illness does not have a large body of evidence to support for or against its use,” he added.
The review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in all aspects of health care. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing trials on a topic.
Saltwater washes have long been a part of ayurvedic care, a traditional medicine used on the Indian subcontinent. Now saline sprays and nose “irrigators” like the neti pot − a small spouted pot used to pour water through the nostrils − have been showing up more often in Western culture, appearing everywhere from “Oprah” to the Mayo Clinic.
Saline nasal washes could flush out excessive mucus and infectious material, and might strengthen the nose’s own filtration system of waving, hair-like cilia, some studies have suggested.
If saline washes work, said the Cochrane reviewers, they could reduce the amount of decongestants, painkillers and improperly prescribed antibiotics used to treat upper respiratory tract infections, while reducing downtime from these illnesses.
