There are things you can do to help protect your respiratory health even with dryer air and poor air quality, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Breathing through your mouth makes health issues from dryer air even worse, says David Edwards, a respiratory health expert at Johns Hopkins. His recent study shows the deleterious impact of dry air on our respiratory system but says there are steps you can take to help.

Edwards: Nasal breathing, actually wearing a face mask, it could even be a cotton mask, these are ways to keep your airways humidified. Drinking water. There are many reasons why people cannot breathe through our nose. About 50% of us now are chronic mouth breathers for various reasons. Inhaling salt droplets, there are new kinds of hypertonic salts solutions that are being worked on to keep our airways hydrated. Once our airways become dehydrated and we have developed allergic rhinitis and asthma and COPD and cough then there are interventions that are needed that are therapeutic.     :34

Edwards notes that solutions meant to be inhaled will probably be widely available soon. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.