Venekamp and his colleagues asked 174 patients who had come to see their doctors for nasal symptoms to take either 30 milligrams per day of prednisolone or placebo pills for one week.

The participants had experienced nasal discharge or congestion and facial pain for at least five days.

They didn't know whether they were assigned to the prednisolone group or the placebo group.

For two weeks, the people in the study kept a diary of their symptoms.

The researchers, who published their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that, for the most part, the symptoms lasted just as long in the steroid group as they did in the placebo group, between seven and nine days.

Also, a similar number of patients in each group felt totally free of symptoms within a week.