Health-Related Effects of the Dead Sea Environment.
Author: Shimon W. Moses
The unprecedented progress that Western traditional medicine has made in the last decades is most impressive, having had a major impact on life expectancy and quality for sufferers of many diseases, yet it still does not provide effective solutions for certain patients afflicted with chronic diseases. As a result natural and environmentally based methods of treatments that can provide a cost effective way to deal with some of such problems are becoming increasingly more popular.
The Dead Sea area is blessed with a unique array of natural features such as attenuated UVB sun rays, a high concentration and unique composition of salts in the sea, a therapeutic antibacterial and increased blood-flow-producing black mud, sulfur-containing springs that are beneficial for patients with joint diseases, and hypoallergenic and unpolluted air with high partial oxygen pressure due to the increased atmospheric pressure present in this low (-417m) altitude. Such a combination of environmental factors, whichare unequalled anywhere else on the globe, provide a wide range of therapeutic options that, in contrast to many drugs, are non toxic, can be repeatedly applied, and have in most cases a beneficial effect leading to disease remission. This aspect has been proven by a significant number of scientific studies indicating that these unique environmental conditions have a favorable effect on several chronic diseases. In Psoriasis the optimum effective solar exposure time per day has been established, the length of remission achieved post exposure has been determined, and the cellular and immunological mechanism involved in the therapeutic response have been elucidated. It has further been shown that in contrast to the cancerogenous effect of regular sea-level sun rays, the unique combination of sun rays existing at the Dead Sea does not lead to an increased tendency to develop skin cancer.
It has also been established that patients with a compromised oxygen supply, be it due to heart or lung conditions, benefit from a sojourn at the Dead Sea where increased partial oxygen saturation is present due to the higher atmospheric pressure at -400 meter.
Low back, pain a common condition in adults and various types of inflammatory or degenerative arthritis are also positively affected after bathing in the Dead Sea or immersion in the sulfur springs present at the shores.
The prevention of photoaging being studied by Professor Milner and his laboratory at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem involves histochemical, biochemical and molecular aspects of skin changes employing natural resources existing at the Dead Sea.Such studies are not only of basic interest but have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry as well.
