In a case of exceedingly timely news, a physician at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco is advising against sinus rinses. With flu on everyone”™s mind, overuse of the rinses ”“ whether salty or not ”“ could disrupt the body”™s immunology at a critical flu-entry spot: the nose.
“There’s a blanket of little, hair-like projections called cilia in the nose, and those cilia can be stunned if they”™re chronically bathed in hypertonic, which is excess salt, or hypo, which is too-little salt, rinses,” said Michael J. Bergstein, senior attending physician at Northern Westchester Hospital. “Do not use nasal saline irrigation as a maintenance because you’ll be altering the natural immune benefit that the sinuses have.”
His opinion is not universal, however. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in reporting on the give-and-take regarding sinus rinses, cites another physician who “could not disagree more.”
In refuting the limited-rinse conclusion, Dr. Jordan S. Josephson, a sinus specialist with Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan said it’s possible for irrigation to wash away protective cells along with the infection, but the protective “mucous blanket” of the sinus packages re-forms and goes back to work, he said.
But the data are worth noting. The rate of sinus infections decreased 62 percent once irrigation was stopped, according to the study Bergstein cited and as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“People who were using nasal sinus irrigation were having an average of eight sinus infections a year,” according to the study”™s author, Dr. Talal Nsouli. “They dropped to three per year.” Nsouli is a clinical professor of pediatrics and allergy-immunology at Georgetown University School of Medicine and director of Watergate & Burke Allergy & Asthma Centers, in Washington D.C.
Rinsing sinuses with a saline solution might have soothing short-term benefits, but it could make the user more prone to infections by purging the nose of immunological bodies.
“By washing the nose, we are removing the bad mucus but, unfortunately, we are also removing the good mucus that contains the antimicrobial agents as well,” said Nsouli. “And, by depleting the nose of its immune elements, we expose the patient to more sinus infections.”
Nsouli’s advice is to avoid using nasal saline irrigation on a long-term basis, limiting its use only to when an infection is present. Legions of people, according to the researchers, use nasal saline irrigation to treat sinus infections, despite lack of robust evidence to support its use.
