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Nasal Dilators: The Sweet Smell of--Nothing

If you watch the Super Bowl or any other professional football game, you will see players wearing nasal dilators. Nasal dilators are the little strips that stick on the skin over the bridge of the nose. The idea is that they expand the nasal airways, making it easier to breathe. Nasal dilators are sold in drugstores as devices to decrease snoring. Football players and other athletes wear them with the goal of improving their athletic performance.

This study suggests that all nasal dilators really do is look sort of funny. Earlier research has shown that there is less resistance when breathing through the nose while wearing a nasal dilator. But improving athletic performance would require that they actually reduce the amount of work it takes to breathe. But no research has measured whether nasal dilators decrease the work of the breathing muscles--the muscles surrounding the lungs. Until now.

For this study, researchers tested 14 untrained young subjects as they rode an exercise bike. Each subject did two exercise tests. During one test subjects wore nasal dilators; during the other, they wore fake nasal dilators. The resistance on the bike was continuously increased until the subjects couldn't keep going. The subjects swallowed a special type of balloon, which was placed just above the stomach. The balloon was attached to a machine that measured the efforts of the breathing muscles during exercise. The subjects' air flow was also measured.

The results showed no real differences in the work of breathing or air flow during exercise. Based on this study, pro football players might as well take off their nasal dilators--or perhaps they could just use them as another spot to sell advertising.

References: Joseph A. O'Kroy, et al. Effects of an External Nasal Dilator on the Work of Breathing During Exercise. In Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. March 2001. Vol. 33. No. 3. Pp. 454-458.

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