Many Flock To The Dead Sea For Salt Therapy
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ShareMan has long sought to use nature's resources for their therapeutic value. Nowhere is this more visible than at the Dead Sea, where people have come for thousands of years to benefit from the minerals found in its mud and the curative powers believed to be contained in its salty waters.
The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth and it is shared by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. The water is so salty that swimmers can float without little effort and read the newspaper. Hotels and spas on both sides of the sea cater to tourists have flocked to its shores from around the world.
"It's a bit itchy and its warm, but it feels quite good," says Ofir Feldman, a tourist from Peru who has covered himself with the dark mud at one of the beaches. "They told me that it can do some good for the skin."
The Dead Sea is a creation of the Syria-African rift that has over the millennia split and opened a huge crack in the earth's surface. From both sides huge mountain ranges and cliffs soar skyward creating a bowl-like effect for its shimmering blue waters.
After a combined effort by Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians, the Dead Sea was recently declared one of the top 14 sites competing for the New Seven Wonders of Nature. It made the short list due to its ecological significance and majestic beauty that has been changed little by humans.
There is little vegetation on its shores, (fed by small springs). Because of its salinity nothing can survive in its warm waters. It's only source of nourishment has been the Jordan River. Today it is 422 meters below sea level. And its water level is dropping at an alarming rate.
The Dead Sea, the world's largest natural spa, is drying up.
"Look here, this is the original life guard hut we set up in 1996 when we first opened. It was on the water's edge," says Ovadia Rapaport, the manager of Mineral Springs, standing about half a kilometer from the present shore.
He points to another hut about 200 meters away toward the sea. "That's the second hut we erected in 2001 and after that we saw an even drastic drop in the water level," he says.
Five years ago, Rapaport says, they realized it was a "one-way-ticket downward" and they put their third life guard hut on wheels and moved even daily. At some spas and hotels, guests are ferried to the beach - sometimes over a kilometer away - by miniature trains.
Fresh water from the Jordan River used to replenish the Dead Sea over the centuries, but for the past two generations much of the sweet water has been diverted for people to drink or for agriculture. In addition to this, industrial sites on its southern shore that harvest the potash and other minerals are contributing to the evaporation rate.
The sea has dropped about 25 meters in the past 33 years, and at a steadily increasing rate. Today it is 1.3 meters lower than it was just a year ago. Today it is still a 300 meter-deep underwater canyon. If nothing is done it will likely drop another 130 meters until it is a tiny lake when evaporation will halt because it will be too salty.
"I want to see this disappearing sea," says Danny Hociynov, a tourist from the Ukraine. "My girlfriend and I came here to see this piece of nature that maybe our children won't have a chance to see." At the world's largest natural spa, tourists benefit from the salts that dry up mucus in the lungs and coat their bodies with the mud that causes the skin to replenish itself like a natural skin peeling.
"When you leave here your skin is as soft as a baby's bottom," chuckles Rapaport, the beach manager. "Your soul ?it's as if you were born yesterday; new and clean. Like an angel."
One proposal to reverse the trend was to dig a canal from either the Red Sea or the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea. This would generate electricity and also replenish the water level. It's currently under study to see what impact it could have on the environment.
"One alternative is to allow sea water to flow in. The Dead Sea is below sea level so we can bring it in, gain energy and desalinate some water as the same time," says Oded Navon, professor of earth science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"If we bring sea water, it'll bring germs and bacteria to what is essentially a dead sea. We have to make sure that the sea doesn't become polluted. Too much bacteria can make the sea stink and also gypsum may precipitate and the sea may turn white."
Other ideas are to stop diverting the Jordan River but this appears out of the question, particularly due to the huge number of people dependent on the sweet water.
While efforts are underway to prevent the Dead Sea from drying up, people are already seeking alternatives. At Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, patients are now being offered Speleotherapy.
Speleotherapy, or 'salt room therapy,' treats conditions such as asthma using the Dead Sea's key ingredient: salt.
When Noam Elimelech, 13, gets his weekly treatment he knows all he has to do is sit on a comfy chair and play his computer game.
"I think it is kind of weird because a room made out of salt is, I don't know, something very unusual. And when I came here I see that this place is very nice and it is very good here? I feel less mucus and I feel better when I leave here," says Elimelech.
Aside from Noam, the comfy chair and the computer game, everything in the room is made out of salt bricks; from the floor to the ceiling. The salt absorbs the fluids in the lungs and dries out the excess mucus. That is offering a new form of relief to sufferers of respiratory illnesses.
The benefits of salt have been known about for years in Eastern Europe. It was first recognized in the salt mines. The miners there rarely suffered from respiratory illnesses. In Eastern Europe people would go to the mines for treatment.
It started to catch on in Israel a few years ago when the first salt rooms were built. Using rock salt mined from the Ukraine, a total of about two dozen have so far been erected.
The speleotherapy center on the grounds of renowned Hadassah hospital is the largest in the country. Treatment usually lasts for about an hour. \
"I didn't have to swallow any pill. I didn't have to rub any ointment on my body. I didn't have to read any package to see what's really in this. Is there anything that can harm me? You sit in a room and you breathe. It doesn't get more natural than that," says Jonathan Kestenbaum, co-founder of Breathwell Salt Rooms.
Speleotherapy is a passive method of treatment. The patients simply breathe in the microscopic salt particles that act as natural disinfectants and soothe the respiratory system.
For the moment, the treatment is not recognized in Israel's basket of health services by the HMOs. Patients pay for their treatment privately. It costs about $35 an hour session.
"Our hope is that our proximity to and affiliation with Hadassah will lead to major advances in the research and ultimately the treatment, of respiratory illnesses," says Kestenbaum.
With their popularity growing in Eastern Europe and now catching on Israel, it's a question of time before Speleotherapy is available in the United States too.
"This is certainly something that's going to be in the US and it's going to be big. We consider this right now the biggest thing you've never heard of," Kestenbaum says.
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