Anybody know much about this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halotherapy
It's basically simulating a salt cave in order to treat respiratory issues. Alongside the salt itself, salt caves are generally clean from air pollution and pollen, and have an interesting micro climate that can be beneficial to your health.
It seems to be a bit more than just the average New Age quackery that's been proliferating recently. After some research, I think that this field has the potential to be beneficial for people with respiratory and skin problems such as asthma, COPD, psoriasis, and others. However, halotherapy has only been shown to help with cystic fibrosis in one study regarding an inhaler with a saline solution.
Another problem I've noticed is that only pharmaceutical (pure) salt should be used, instead of "Himalayan" or "Dead Sea" salt, which contains trace minerals that should not be inhaled. And you cannot just place salt decor into a room and dump pounds of salt on the floor and expect to simulate a cave, you need special equipment for that. I'm sure that some of these places aren't doing that properly.
Currently, salt caves are mostly a Central/Eastern Europe phenomenon, which is also where most of the research has been done. However, most of the research isn't up to the standards of acceptable rigor, leaving it's benefits in the dark.
"Salt caves" are starting to sprout all over the United States nowadays, and I think it's time that serious medical studies are done on this potentially beneficial form of treatment because it's pretty fucking stupid to have all these salt caves opening up touting cures when they barely have the support, most of which is anecdotal, to back their claims.
So what do you guys think? Scam? Legitimate treatment? Decent possibilities? Obsolete? I might edit in a poll if there's enough interest.