Can a dip in the Dead Sea help cure diabetes?

[King_David]

Swimming in the salty water could improve the medical condition of diabetics, according to new Israeli study.
By Dan Even

A short dip in the Dead Sea facilitates a drop in blood glucose levels and could improve the medical conditions of diabetics, according to an initial study conducted by researchers from the health sciences faculty of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva.


The study involved an initial sample group of 14 individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 who have suffered from Type 2 diabetes for less than 20 years.

The study took place in a covered pool filled with Dead Sea water at a temperature of 35 degrees Celsius. Following a 20-minute, one-time dip in the Dead Sea water, the study subjects showed a significant 13.5 percent drop in blood glucose levels, from an average of 163 mg/dl to a value of 151 mg/dl immediately after the dip. The subjects’ blood glucose levels dropped even further, to an average of 141.4 mg/dl, an hour after the dip in the Dead Sea water.

A controled test in which the subjects underwent a 20-minute dip in regular water did not show any distinct drop in blood glucose levels with regard to the measurements taken immediately before and after the time spent in the pool. There was, however, a difference between the blood glucose levels measured immediately after the dip and an hour later.


http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/can-a-dip-in-the-dead-sea-help-cure-diabetes-1.381432

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Magnesium?

Interesting.

[King_David]

2. The headline is wrong, it should read:

Can a dip in the Dead Sea help control diabetes?

[TNDemo]

3. I would think swimming for 20 minutes

In a regular pool would drop the glucose that much.

[HereSince1628]

4. Interesting but it seems like a small sample size for considering a process

that is very dynamic (and potentially noisy), and has so many contributing variables needing to be known and controlled.

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. seems more like a tourism commercial rather than science..

here's to hoping that the LDS supreme council doesn't figure out how to market the Great Salt Lake in the same fashion, if they haven't already..

[azurnoir]

6. something not mentioned when and what did the test subjects last eat

are any of them on insulin, or if not what other medications are they on and when were those taken

[Cirque du So-What]

7. Couldn't Dead Sea conditions be replicated in the bathtub?

1 bathtub full of water + big box of epsom salts + big box of sea salt = instant Dead Sea for helluva lot cheaper...assuming, of course, that there's any medical value to submersion in salty water in the first place.

[Lithos]

8. It is a bit more than that to the chemical makeup

But I agree with you the test should be repeatable in other situations.

L-