Dr Norman Swan
speaker
26,995 appearances
288 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2006
last heard 15 Sep
Dr Norman Swan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
So the idea here is that your nose hairs are there to capture rubbish that's coming in from outside, capture infections, capture allergens.
And the idea is that it might help to prevent infection or even reduce allergen load if you've got a tendency to asthma.
And the research has gone backwards and forwards on this.
And of course, it depends on how much you're removing.
So there is some research that suggests if you remove, if you've got a lot of nasal hair and you remove it, you get better airflow.
Yeah.
The question is, what do you lose by that?
And the evidence goes backwards and forwards on this.
If you actually look at the physics of this and the size of particles...
Nose hair is going to capture big things that are not so microscopic and be obvious.
Like dust.
That's right.
If you've ever been sanding things, you know, it does go up your nose unless you're wearing a mask.
And then when you blow it, it all comes out again and you're like, disgusting.
But viruses and allergens tend to be small and probably escape the hairs.
And so the evidence goes backwards and forwards as to whether removing all your nose hair is
is bad for asthma, is bad for allergens, is bad for infection, and the evidence isn't conclusive.
And I suppose where you would land here, just to get past the nose hair thing, is if you're going to trim your nose hair, you just trim it in that very outside part of your nostril, and you're leaving the hair that's inside to do whatever job it was designed to do.
On living people or dead people?
And the recurrent theme in this WhatsApp rash is going to be the health risk is probably more from removing the hair, the process of removing the hair, rather than being left with no hair.
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