A bizarre wellness trend has caused quite a stink, with experts warning it could potentially do more harm than good.
Experts at health and wellbeing app, Evergreen Life, have taken a look at popular health videos on TikTok in a bid to debunk the most nonsensical advice.
In doing so, they have discovered one of 2023’s more bizarre trends: pushing garlic up your nose.
Several videos are promoting the unusual move as a way to clear sinuses and help with winter colds.
Although this is not a new idea, the trend has seen a resurgence in 2023. As it stands, the TikTok search term #garlicsnots, which is on each of the garlic videos, has 115,000 views this year.
The “garlic nose hack” involves people peeling cloves of garlic and shoving them up each nostril for 15 to 30 minutes to unclog their sinuses.
Apparently, once the time is up and the cloves are removed, excess mucus streams out of the nose and clears the nasal passage.
Commenting on the trend, Evergreen medical expert Dr Brian Fisher, said: “Although garlic has well-known activity against bacteria and viruses, putting garlic up your nostrils could damage your nose and sinuses; the garlic chemicals can cause irritation, and bits of garlic could get stuck up your nose.
“Garlic as an infusion would be much safer.”
As it is, TikTok has added warnings on some of the videos, saying that participating in the actions depicted on screen could cause harm to viewers.
