Rio Grande, Puerto Rico | It’s been featured on Oprah, and the New York Times Magazine anointed it a buzz word last year. On top of that, nasal irrigation actually works, if a study presented here at the North American Primary Care Research Group annual meeting is correct.

Nasal irrigation involves using a warm saline solution, and possibly other ingredients, to lavage out the sinus passages. Probably originating in the Ayurvedic medical tradition, the idea has been adopted by alternative practitioners and now by mainstream medicine.

Emily Guerard, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Wisconsin Madison, told meeting delegates nasal irrigation is used to alleviate symptoms of asthma, allergic rhinitis and nasal polyposis. In the U.S., rhinosinusitis and associated problems are among the top 10 ambulatory diseases, resulting in 26.7 million office and ER visits at a cost of $5.8 billion annually. It is the fifth leading reason for antibiotic prescription.

In a pilot study to assess using hypertonic saline nasal irrigation (HSNI) to reduce the symptoms of rhinosinusitis, a primary-care and ENT specialty clinic at the Wisconsin university randomly enrolled 76 people in a six-month study to compare HSNI with normal care. The 52 participants in the HSNI group reported improved quality of life and decreased sinus symptoms, antibiotics and nasal spray use.

Researchers further followed 28 patients out to 12 or 18 months, when they participated in a structured interview. In the interviews, 12 of 21 subjects with allergic rhinitis spontaneously reported that HSNI improved symptoms, as did two of seven subjects with asthma and one of two subjects with nasal polyposis (some patients had more than one problem).

Guerard said HSNI with a 2% saline solution was found to be effective, safe, well-tolerated and inexpensive. “Patients with frequent sinus symptoms can learn in the office and use at home,” she said. There are also video clips on YouTube that explain how to use the device.

The only problems involved finding the right time of day to do it and getting the water temperature right.

“Most patients were savvy enough to work with that and find out how to do it and how it best fitted them.”