My Investigation 2: What Causes Us to Sneeze?

For this week I decided to do my investigation on what causes us to sneeze.  During this week in class we learned about innate immunity and it reminded me that our skin and mucous membranes of the respiratory, digestive, urinary, and reproductive system are the first line of defense in the body.  We never discussed in class what causes us to sneeze in complete depth however. In the article entitled What Causes Sneezing it basically explains what causes us to sneeze.  It states that
" It's the body's attempt to get rid of some material in the nasal passages ( Ellis-Christensen, 2013)."  As for me a person may have a runny nose from a cold or flu, which causes the mucous membranes in the sinus passages to become irritated. The body responds by attempting to clear these passages through its first line of defense by causing an individual to sneeze.

The article also states that "At other times, allergies to pollens, dust, or molds cause sneezing. The nose, which is acting as a filtration device, works to remove these allergens from the body by expelling them. Since allergies entering the nose are often made up of tiny particles, it may take multiple attempts to do the trick of removing irritants ( Ellis-Christensen, 2013)."  In conclusion, the nasal passages are good at detecting when an irritant has invaded it and will do all it can to get rid of it and therefore, we sneeze. 


Ellis-Christensen, T. (2013, March 29). What causes sneezing?. Retrieved from                                     http://www.wisegeek.org/what-causes-sneezing.htm 



Interesting Fact:   The longest sneezing spree was 978 days, a record set by Donna Griffiths of Worcestershire, England, according to background information on the Library of Congress' web site.