Introduction

Within a very few years, it will become customary for some patients with stubborn health problems to travel to appropriate centers of expert treatment for help. The Dead Sea already welcomes many psoriasis and eczema sufferers each year in just this way. In some countries this is supported by health insurance funds as a cost effective option they wish to encourage.

Meanwhile the public are showing considerable interest in non-conventional forms of medicine, especially in areas where conventional medicine is performing poorly. Rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis are two such areas. Jointly these affect 5-15% of the adult population. Some 2-million people therefore require treatment but are not being effectively relieved or cured at present.

The author of this report is a family doctor with 25 years experience in the British National Health Service who specializes in natural therapies and in the development of cost-effective health-promotive services. He directs Templegarth Trust, a charity registered in Britain, which he founded in 1980 to undertake research and development towards a true service for health. Medical services are directed against disease, and are not appropriate for the comprehensive promotion of health. During attendance at the First International Dead Sea conference in 1992 he was struck by the number of other guests at the Dead Sea hotels who are there to receive medical treatment. Most come from overseas, some repeatedly year after year.

Prominent among them are citizens of Denmark, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland whose medical fees are approved for payment by their insurance companies. He subsequently conducted a worldwide literature search and uncovered a number of descriptive papers published in reputable medical journals. For example, during 1975-1981, 7% of Danish psoriasis patients were already receiving treatment at the Dead Sea. Other papers in these journals detail impressive results of treatment at the Dead Sea for psoriasis and for rheumatoid arthritis. These are both common conditions in Britain, the usual treatment for which leaves much to be desired. Small scale experiments using natural Dead Sea mud within the author's own practice tended to bear out these results. During November 1993, he therefore visited the manufactures in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan of the highest quality natural unprocessed Dead Sea mud available, and observed its use at a number of centers.


Principles

The Dead Sea offers a unique climate and environmental facility which especially favors the treatment of Psoriasis. Dermatologists emphasize, however, that in this condition the full range of sunbathing, Dead Sea bathing and mud treatment are necessary for 28 days if a high rate of success is to be achieved. The present treatment facility on the Dead Sea coast of Jordan is, therefore, devoted almost totally to the treatment of skin diseases, chiefly in patients from Germany.

The published medical literature of Dead Sea treatments includes, however, several impressive papers on the effectiveness of Dead Sea mud treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. It appears that in this condition mud packs play a particularly valuable part, and that good results can be obtained in a high proportion of cases within a 14-day treatment period. For this purpose, therefore, a site on the Dead Sea is essential. Rheumatoid arthritis is in Europe a major source of disabling disease for which the conventional treatment is both non-curative and dangerous. The side effects of medication often create life-threatening complications which prevent further medication. In this group of patients, therefore, Dead Sea mud therapy offers a valuable new opportunity. Furthermore, provision for on-going treatment using Dead Sea mud can conveniently be made in Europe.

The natural assets of the Dead Sea are therefore exportable to some extent. The mud and salts for therapy and cosmetic purposes are shipped to various locations world-wide. A small consignment to Britain in 1993 has already made an impressive market penetration for spirited small scale entrepreneurial effort.


The Dead Sea

The origins of the Dead Sea are not fully agreed upon by different authorities. It is clearly part of the Syro-African rift valley system which extends from the Jordan valley through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea across the Ethiopian Highlands and southwards in two branches as far as the mouth of the Zambisi. This rift is still active, opening at the Dead Sea and sliding, so that its eastern shores are moving slowly north and east and the floor of the sea is depending. Its surface is already the lowest place on the earth at 392 meters below Mediterranean Sea level, and its floor is a further 400 meters deeper. In addition to this, however, the floor of the Dead Sea may leak salts and tar upwards from within the earth in a more or less continual stream. Some authorities regard it therefore as an underwater volcano. Whether volcanic or not, such a deep and active rift in the earth's crust would clearly permit leakage upwards of the earth's hot liquid contents. These hot salts and tars therefore represent a renewable resource. They meet and mix with the waters of the Jordan river and flash floods from the high ground around the Dead Sea. The unique concentrated minerals sea contains around 300 grams of the water-soluble salts per liter (7-10 times more than the oceans) and the water-insoluble residues and tars deposit on the bottom as mud. [Here you will find an analysis of the active substances.]

Their Dead Sea Mud and Salts are therefore certainly the purest and probably the best quality products available from the region.


The Dead Sea Climate

Dermatologists, who specialize in psoriasis and have written about the Dead Sea treatments, stress the important contribution of other factors on the local climate to the benefits gained by skin disease patients. The temperature is always warm, daily peaks averaging 32 degrees C in summer and 19 degrees in winter, Mud and sea surface temperature can easily attain 40 degrees in summer. The barometric pressure is high (1050-1066 milibars) with a 10% increase in oxygen concentration. The humidity is low (27% in summer, 38% in winter) but the very high evaporation rate creates a misty layer over the sea by mid morning which filters out about half of the ultraviolet-B light which causes sunburn. The strength of sunlight in the area is weakened across the entire spectrum, in fact, which further favors its therapeutic uses. While these features favor the Dead Sea as a venue for a treatment holiday, many of them could also be recreated elsewhere to provide a specialized therapy micro-climate. This visit provided an opportunity to consider both possibilities.


Treatment for Skin Diseases

The vast majority of Dead Sea visitors come for treatment of skin complaints. This ideally requires 4-6 weeks but yields around 85% success. The treatment consists of gradually increasing twice daily exposure to the sun and similar periods of flotation in the sea. Petroleum jelly applications, bath oils, peeling agents and tar ointment are employed selectively. Mud packs seem not to be used routinely for skin disease. By the end of 4 weeks most patients have improved dramatically. Success rates in psoriasis vary from 77% - 96% in various published series. The benefit of treatment lasts for several months and in case of psoriasis is prolonged during summer months in the home country, so many northern Europeans visit the Dead Sea during winter.


Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Less attention has been paid by medical research groups to the potential of Dead Sea therapies in rheumatic complaints but two impressive papers have been published by a group at the university of the Negef. In these, particular use was made of the whole body packs of Dead Sea mud. Each patient receives a 20 minute mud pack daily, applied at 42 degrees C and kept warm throughout. In addition in some studies they receive 20-30 minutes flotation in a mineral salt pool or the Dead Sea. (Most of these treatments were done at some distance away from the Dead Sea). The effects were dramatic, with particularly impressive reduction in all forms of handicap-morning stiffness, walking limitation, grip weakness and joint swelling. No actual percentages have been found in published series but verbal claims suggest 75% improvement overall. Most patients seem to benefit to some extent. The mechanism of improvement is somewhat mysterious. Heat alone does not account for it, since whole mud produces a significantly better benefit than washed out mud. Its mineral content must in some degree be absorbed into the body. Perhaps also there are energy-field effects of the kind described by holistic practitioners but not yet measured in these studies. Flotation offers an obvious benefit in resting load bearing joints, and through long-wave heating during the immersion must promote the metabolism of healing within the joints of the arms and legs, which in northern climates are often colder and therefore stiffer. These benefits are large enough to improve the functionality not only of rheumatics but also of osteoarthritis sufferers, in whom inflammation of joints plays a much smaller part and structural damage is predominant.


Home Treatment

Dead Sea mud is an effective treatment for applications to patches of skin disease at home, whit little or no medical supervision. It should be mixed, a portion placed in a metal saucer or pan and its surface just covered with water to prevent drying out. The pan can be placed in a larger saucepan of water at 45 degrees Celsius (hand not). The mud is applied to the affected area and kept hot by covering with a hot moist face-cloth or towel. The towel needs to be refreshed with hot water every 30 seconds throughout the treatment which lasts ten minutes. The mud pack is then washed off. This can be repeated daily, but is sometimes only needed 2-3 times weekly. If the treated skin becomes excessively dry it can be rested for a few days before treatment is resumed. A similar approach may be adopted for small joints affected by rheumatism, but better results are obtained if a larger area of the body, some as the chest or stomach, is treated at the same time. It is in rheumatism particularly that the benefits of the mud treatment can best be appreciated. In both skin and rheumatic diseases the benefits of a period of residential treatment at a spa can be extended by treatment at home in the ensuing months. This should succeed in extending the interval of good function between residential courses of treatment.