Using saltwater to shorten colds and stop the spread

Households with children know they often bring home much more than homework. They return with sniffles and sore throats, which get passed on to everyone in the house.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was an easy and inexpensive way to head off the “crud” the kids inevitably transport home and to anyone else they come in contact with?

Well, research indicates there just might be a non-drug way to help them get over these infections quickly — and reduce the spread…

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Saline nasal drops could do the trick

A team of researchers enrolled 407 children aged up to six years in the ELVIS-Kids study. When they developed a cold they were either given either their usual care or hypertonic saline ~2.6 percent (saltwater) nasal drops.

Overall, 301 children developed a cold. In the nasal drops group, parents were given sea salt and taught to make and apply the nasal drops to their children’s noses. They administered three drops per nostril at least four times a day until the child was well.

The researchers found children using saltwater nose drops had cold symptoms for an average of six days, compared with the children receiving usual care, who had symptoms for eight days. The children receiving nose drops also needed fewer medicines during their illness.

“Children have up to 10 to 12 upper respiratory tract infections, what we refer to as colds, per year, which have a big impact on them and their families,” says Steve Cunningham, a professor at the University of Edinburgh. “There are medicines to improve symptoms, such as paracetamol [acetaminophen] and ibuprofen, but no treatments that can make a cold get better quicker.”

When children received saltwater nose drops, 46 percent of their households reported family members catching a cold, compared with 61 percent of households for children receiving usual cold care.

Also, 82 percent of parents reported that nose drops helped the child recover quickly, and 81 percent said they would use nose drops in the future.

“Reducing the duration of colds in children means that fewer people in their house also get a cold, with clear implications for how quickly a household feels better and can return to their usual activities like school and work, etc.,” Cunningham says. “Our study also showed that parents can safely make and administer nose drops to their children and therefore have some control over the common cold affecting their children.”

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Why it works

ELVIS-Kids chief investigator Dr. Sandeep Ramalingam, a consultant virologist for NHS Lothian in Edinburgh, U.K., notes that saltwater solutions are often used by people in South Asia as nasal irrigation and gargling to treat a cold.

The way the drops work hinges on the salt, or sodium chloride, in the water. “Chloride is used by the cells lining the nose and windpipes to produce hypochlorous acid within cells, which they use to defend against virus infection,” Cunningham says. “By giving extra chloride to the lining cells, this helps the cells produce more hypochlorous acid, which helps suppress viral replication, reducing the length of the virus infection, and therefore the duration of symptoms.”

Ultimately, saltwater nasal drops represent a safe, simple and inexpensive solution for reducing the duration of colds by two days, thus slashing the health and economic burden of colds on families.

The researchers hope to further study the effect of saltwater nose drops on wheeze-related colds. Initial results from this study showed children who received the drops had significantly fewer episodes of wheezing (5 percent versus 19 percent in children receiving the usual treatment).

To make your own saline nasal drops at home, add 1 teaspoon of non-iodized salt and 1 teaspoon of baking soda to 2 cups distilled or boiled water that must cooled to room temperature before use. You can then use a sterile squeeze bottle to apply them.

If making your saline solution seems like too much of a hassle, saline nasal drops and sprays are inexpensive and readily available in drugstores. There are brands made specifically for use in children and for adults.

And even though saline solution drops were only tested in children, it probably would make sense for adults to try them as well to reduce cold duration — given how easy they are to use and what we’ve learned about how chloride from salt is instrumental in immune defense, why not?

Sources:

Saline nasal drops reduce the duration of the common cold in young children by two days — EurekAlert!

Saline Nasal Washes for Children: Care Instructions — MyHealthAlberta.ca