We often underestimate the health of the nose. Many people, even with important disorders, tend to ignore it or to choose generic solutions. Doctor Luca Malvezzi, otolaryngologist and neck-and-face surgeon at Humanitas, spoke about this in an interview for Radio 24’s programme “Heart and Money”. He said that it is important to care for our nose, and that the treatments for its diseases are getting more and more personalized.

“Many people who suffer from rhinitis or most commonly allergic rhinitis for instance, don’t notice their problem. They started breathing heavily so many years ago, that they no longer know what light breathing is. However, this failure to recognize the problem may evolve in time, involving not only nose and sinuses, but also trachea, bronchi and lungs. So, in a clinically relevant way, the problem starts affecting the lungs”.

Keeping the nose clean

“You should clean your nose on a daily basis, even if you don’t suffer from any ailment. For instance, in big cities we breathe part of the pollution, and the dirt that goes in our nose starts an inflammatory response. This is why everyone, whatever their age, should clean their nose morning and evening.

The easiest, simplest and cheapest way is cleansing it with a needle-free syringe filled with physiological saline. However, it is better to avoid makeshift preparations at home. If you put too much salt in the solution, for example, you may risk making it too much hypertonic. This will dehydrate the mucous membrane of your nose. Tap water is a bit irritating, because its pH is different from that of physiological saline and because it contains different salts”, Dr. Malvezzi explains.

4P medicine

“Nowadays there are different ways to cure nose diseases. The patient has to be studied by a multidisciplinary board, and the otolaryngologist has to collaborate with immunologists, allergologists and pneumologists in treating the airway. The disease has to be phenotyped, to guarantee a specific treatment for specific diseases. The future belongs to 4P medicine. Personalized, predictive, preventive and participative. This method will guarantee an increasingly precise therapeutic, pharmacological or surgical treatment”.