Nebulised saline therapy is a good example of a device that does real good for the right people and is shamelessly oversold to everyone else. Staying true to the CHC instinct, we will tell you both halves honestly.
For people with certain chronic respiratory conditions — where mucus is thick and hard to clear — nebulised saline can genuinely loosen secretions and ease breathing. Used as part of a plan a clinician has suggested, a nebuliser is a properly medical device that earns its place.
For an ordinary winter cough or general ‘wellness’, it is unnecessary, and the websites pushing it that way are selling you reassurance, not medicine. There is also a hygiene cost: a nebuliser must be cleaned properly, or it becomes a way of breathing in whatever is growing in it.
So the honest answer to ‘who benefits?’ is: people with a specific respiratory need, ideally on clinical advice — not the worried well. If that is you, choose a genuine medical device and clean it religiously. Our wider device guide sets out where the evidence does and does not support these tools: our evidence-first natural health devices guide.