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Scientists have revealed a simple remedy that they say reduces how long a child has a cold for.
The research, which has not yet been published in an academic journal, was presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Vienna.
It said that giving young children saline nasal drops cuts the duration of colds by two days. It also found that drops made up of a concentration of salt could cut the chance of passing on colds to family members.
Professor Steve Cunningham, from the University of Edinburgh who worked on the ELVIS-Kids randomised controlled trial, said: “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.
“There are medicines to improve symptoms, such as paracetamol and ibuprofen, but no treatments that can make a cold get better quicker.
“We found that children using salt-water nose drops had cold symptoms for an average of six days where those with usual care had symptoms for eight days.
“The children receiving salt water nose drops also needed fewer medicines during their illness.”
Prof Cunningham said the 2.6% salt water concentration of drops used in the study cannot currently be bought over-the-counter and needs to be made up by parents.
His team plans to release “simple instructions” and a video within the next few days to help parents do this at home.
He added that he hoped the research “will encourage use of hypertonic saline nose drops by healthcare professionals (3% hypertonic saline solutions are available) until an over-the-counter or pharmacy preparation for this purpose can be made available.”
Prof Cunningham explained how salt may work to cut the length of colds.
He said: “Salt is made up of sodium and chloride. 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.
“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.”
The research team recruited 407 children aged up to six for the study.
They were given either salt water nasal drops or usual care when they developed a cold.
Some 301 children developed a cold and for 150 of these, their parents were given sea salt and taught to make and apply salt water nose drops to the children’s noses (three drops per nostril, a minimum of four times per day, until well). The other 151 children had usual care.
In children given the drops, fewer households reported family members catching a cold (46% vs 61% for usual care).
Some 82% of parents said the nose drops helped their child get better quickly while 81% said they would use nose drops in the future.
Prof Cunningham said: “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.
“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.”
Dr Matthew Siggins, research fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study, said the research showed a degree of success with reducing the length of symptoms, “albeit only moderately”.
He added: “The ELVIS-Kids trial results match a recent larger study in adults, conducted at Southampton University, which also showed the application of simple saline water reduced symptoms by around two days on average.
“Though the present study was relatively large and robustly designed, it is worth noting that patients were suffering from a range of different viruses…
“This moderate shortening of cold symptom duration was observed on average, but it is not possible to know if all or which individuals in the study benefited from the saline treatment.”
He said it also remained unclear how saline might help cut cold symptoms.
He added: “Prevention of infection and spread is the most valuable goal in public health and, where vaccines are available, they remain the best route to protect yourself and others, but the reduction in household spread the study recorded in the saline group is encouraging.”
He called for future studies that “could help design sprays that can more effectively suppress symptoms and spread.
“For now, saline seems a cheap and easy approach that may help somewhat ease the experience of your and your children’s next cold.”
