Health - Wellness
Why Plucking Your Nose Hair Is Riskier Than You Think
By ZRINKA PETERS
According to Cleveland Clinic, the average person grows 6 1/2 feet of nose hair from each follicle over a lifetime, and it gets coarser as the person ages. While it is tempting to remove nose hairs, they provide support to the immune system.
The larger, visible hairs and the tiny ones, known as cilia, play a front-line role in keeping dust, germs, and debris from entering the body and also help retain moisture in the air we breathe. A 2011 study found that those with the least amount of hair had a significantly greater rate of asthma, combined with seasonal allergies, than those with more hair.
Even so, many prefer to remove them, and the lowest-risk way to remove unwanted hair is to use tiny scissors or an electric nose-hair trimmer, which doctors will advise over plucking or waxing. Laser hair removal is a permanent treatment, but it can harm the mucous membranes inside the nasal cavity and is the most costly and time-consuming option.