I think that’s their guess but they don’t directly check here.
I also suspect that it doesn’t matter very much.
The sinuses have so much NO compared to the nose that this probably doesn’t materially lower sinus concentrations.
the power of humming goes down with each breath but is fully restored in 3 minutes, suggesting that whatever change happens in the sinsues is restored quickly
From my limited understanding of virology and immunology, alternating intensity of NO between sinuses and nose every three minutes is probably better than keeping sinus concentrations high[1]. The first second of NO does the most damage to microbes[2], so alternation isn’t that bad.
I’d love to test this. The device you linked works via the mouth, and we’d need something that works via the nose. From a quick google it does look like it’s the same test, so we’d just need a nasal adaptor.
Other options:
Nnoxx. Consumer skin device, meant for muscle measurements
There are lots of devices for measuring concentration in the air, maybe they could be repurporsed. Just breathing on it might be enough for useful relative metrics, even if they’re low-precision.
I’m also going to try to talk my asthma specialist into letting me use their oral machine to test my nose under multiple circumstances, but it seems unlikely she’ll go for it.
obvious question: so why didn’t evolution do that? Ancestral environment didn’t have nearly this disease (or pollution) load. This doesn’t mean I’m right but it means I’m discounting that specific evolutionary argument.
I think that’s their guess but they don’t directly check here.
I also suspect that it doesn’t matter very much.
The sinuses have so much NO compared to the nose that this probably doesn’t materially lower sinus concentrations.
the power of humming goes down with each breath but is fully restored in 3 minutes, suggesting that whatever change happens in the sinsues is restored quickly
From my limited understanding of virology and immunology, alternating intensity of NO between sinuses and nose every three minutes is probably better than keeping sinus concentrations high[1]. The first second of NO does the most damage to microbes[2], so alternation isn’t that bad.
I’d love to test this. The device you linked works via the mouth, and we’d need something that works via the nose. From a quick google it does look like it’s the same test, so we’d just need a nasal adaptor.
Other options:
Nnoxx. Consumer skin device, meant for muscle measurements
There are lots of devices for measuring concentration in the air, maybe they could be repurporsed. Just breathing on it might be enough for useful relative metrics, even if they’re low-precision.
I’m also going to try to talk my asthma specialist into letting me use their oral machine to test my nose under multiple circumstances, but it seems unlikely she’ll go for it.
obvious question: so why didn’t evolution do that? Ancestral environment didn’t have nearly this disease (or pollution) load. This doesn’t mean I’m right but it means I’m discounting that specific evolutionary argument.
although NO is also an immune system signal molecule, so the average does matter.