Gargling with salt water really CAN ward off Covid, new study suggests

Rinsing your mouth with salt water if you have Covid can reduce the chance of you ending up in hospital.

In a study presented last week, researchers measured the effect of gargling and nasal rinses with saline on the symptoms and number of hospital admissions in patients with Covid.

They found that hospitalization rates for people who gargled or rinsed their nose with salt water were up to 40 percent lower than for people who did not.

Dr. Jimmy Espinoza, study author and professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive services at the University of Texas, said the goal was to see if gargling and nasal rinses can improve respiratory symptoms associated with Covid.

He said: ‘We found that both saline regimens appear to be associated with lower hospital admissions compared with controls in SARS-CoV-2 infections.’

Between 2020 and 2022, the team evaluated 9,398 adults between 18 and 65 years old who had tested positive for Covid via a PCR test. Of those, 58 were selected to follow a low or high dose of saline solution mixed with 250 ml of warm water.

The low dose regimen was 2.13 grams of saline – about a third of a teaspoon – and the high dose was six grams – about one and a half teaspoons. Participants gargled and rinsed their nose four times a day for 14 days.

Nasal singing involves moving a saline solution through the nasal passages to remove our mucus and allergens. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this is done by tilting your head sideways to the left over a sink or bathtub and gently pouring or squeezing the solution through the nostril.

The control group that was not instructed to gargle with salt water or rinse the nose had a hospitalization rate of 58.8 percent.

The researchers found that the hospitalization rate for participants in the low-dose regimen dropped to 18.5 percent, and the rate for the high-dose group was 21.4 percent.

This was up to 40 percent lower than in the control group.

Dr. Zach Rubin, an allergist and spokesperson for the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI), said Medscape: ‘This is a type of intervention with low risk and small potential benefit.’

The researchers did not explain why the saline solutions resulted in fewer hospitalizations, but Dr. Rubin said gargling and rinsing could help remove the virus from the sinuses and reduce the chance of it seeping into the lungs, which could result in pneumonia , a leading cause of pneumonia. hospitalization.

He said: ‘It can help reduce symptoms such as nasal congestion, (runny nose), postnasal drip and sinus pain and pressure.’

The study excluded patients with chronic hypertension, also called high blood pressure, because they could accidentally swallow some of the salt, and excess salt can constrict and stiffen blood vessels, further raising blood pressure.

The patients were also all near-obese, with BMIs ranging from 29.6 to 31.7, increasing the chance of complications that would land them in the hospital. The control and study groups had “similar vaccination rates,” the researchers said.

The findings are consistent with other smaller studies that tested the effects of gargling and nasal rinses.

A June review in the magazine Frontiers in public healthFor example, they found that this practice could relieve colds, upper respiratory infections and Covid-19 by flushing out the viruses.

It is unclear whether gargling and nasal rinses would have the same effect on mainly vaccinated patients or on people with a more normal BMI, the researchers said.

The study was presented last week at the ACAAI Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California.