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Comment by biofox | Hacker News Reader

Here's a new one for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_viruses

"Viruses are the most abundant biological entity in marine environments. On average there are about ten million of them in one milliliter of seawater."

If enough people get seawater up their nose, it's just a matter of time before there's a crossover event :)

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Shall we tell him about the Portuguese man o' war‘s 100 feet tentacles, or spontaneous methane clathrate eruptions?

If they were likely to crossover into mammals, they would probably have crossed over into seals by now.

Considering how common is swallowing and aspirating seawater is, how significant is this risk?

Based on the historical record of humans at the sea, and the folk belief that seawater is healthy, not a significant risk at all.

Ingesting bacteriophages could even be beneficial if you have bacterial issues.

We have a microvirome so the mere existence of viruses is not necessarily a bad thing in itself

I cannot give statistics but I think viruses in the sea are for marine life and mostly they don't target humans. Also we are already inhaling lots of viruses.

> viruses in the sea are for marine life

Yes of course.

The Wikipedia article says "Most of these viruses are bacteriophages ... Bacteriophages are harmless to plants and animals ... Viruses are the main agents responsible for the rapid destruction of harmful algal blooms"

Likely next to none can infect land mammals. Such viruses would not have a way to replicate to large numbers in seawater, not in land mammals.

old home remedy if you suffer from a blocked nose/sinuses: "inhale" sea-water through your nose to clear it all up.

Nasal irrigation/sinus rinsing. There are accessories that make it more comfortable too. I think salt water in particular is just because non-isotonic water inside your nose hurts and irritates the membranes.

You can get sterile saline solutions for this purpose, in case you don't want "natural" seawater. Yes, too little (or too much) salt in the water will be painful.

You can just dissolve a teaspoon of salt to half a litre of any warm fresh drinkable water (tapwater is fine if it’s even reasonably good quality). Should be hundreds of times cheaper than sterile solution :)

Please sterilise it first.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-to-know-about-anoth...

Point taken.

> CDC officials, citing a 2021 survey, say about one-third of U.S. adults incorrectly think tap water was free of bacteria and other microorganisms. Nearly two-thirds say tap water could be safely used for rinsing their sinuses.

> The CDC recommends using boiled, sterile or distilled water.

Flesh eating bacteria? Yeah, no, thanks.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-to-know-about-anoth...

I may be biased by the quality of tap water where I live. Pharmacies around here definitely advise just using warm tap water, although they do of course also sell more sterile stuff too.

Sinus rinsing is one of those things that gets recommended a lot without thought. For many conditions, it's great relief, but on the flip side, if you have e.g. inflamed sinuses or the like, it can make your condition considerably worse. As always, it's best to consult your doctor, because there's more nuance to human health than handy tips online would let on.

Take more pills and don’t ask questions.

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