Maplewood • Every inch of the ceiling, wallsand floor is covered in salt. Lights shine through a short bench ofsalmon-colored Himalayan salt bricks in the corner, producing anamber glow in the cloud-like room. Soothing music plays softly.

Before entering the salt chamber, two women removed their shoesand covered their feet with paper-like booties. They tucked theirhair under a surgical cap.

“My lungs just don’t hurt every day like they have been,”Pauline Buehner said before taking her spot in one of the loungechairs for her 45-minute session. Buehner, 49, of High Ridge,suffers from asthma, allergies and chronic obstructive pulmonarydisease.

It was Buehner’s fourth visit to the St. Louis Salt Room, whichopened Dec. 3 in the hip downtown area. about two tons ofmineral-rich Dead Sea salt fills the room, oozing of anti-bacterialand anti-inflammatory properties. Operators of little-researchedsalt rooms say salt boosts immunity and offers relief for a varietyof ailments, including respiratory problems, skin disorders,arthritis and stress; but doctors question the claims.

“There’s no scientific evidence at all that it’s beneficial,”SLUCare allergist Dr. Raymond Slavin said. “It’s not a bad idea,but somebody should study it.”

While several salt rooms operate in Europe and Canada, the St.Louis Salt Room is only the seventh to open in this country, saidowner Clay Juracsik, 42, of Richmond Heights.

“I think this is the most health-giving room in the Midwest,”said Juracsik, who discovered salt therapy this summer whileresearching natural remedies for his daughter’s asthma. Sessionsare available for parents and children, who play with toys as ifthe chamber is a 14-by-11-foot white sandbox.

Salt therapy, known has halotherapy or speleotherapy, was bornin the mid-1800s after it was discovered that people who worked inthe salt mines of Poland had remarkably low rates of respiratoryillnesses. Artificial salt caves began to pop up across Europe inan effort to mimic the effects.

Salt rooms are different from salt caves, in that besides beingfilled with salt, they also use a “halogenerator” to reach thedeepest parts of the lungs and skin. the machine heats, spins andgrinds salt into very small particles before blowing them into theair. the dry vapor is filled with negative salt ions, consideredthe key to the room’s healing powers.

“It reproduces the effect of being in an active salt mine,”Juracsik said.

Negative ions are created in nature as air molecules break apartdue to sunlight, moving air and water. They are found in abundanceafter spring thunderstorms and around mountains, waterfalls andbeaches. Once in our blood, they increase mood chemicals and theflow of oxygen to the brain, boosting energy and relieving stress.Columbia University researchers have found that negative iongenerators work as well as medication for people who get depressedin the winter.

Negative ions may also help clean the air, by adhering topollutants, allergens and bacteria; and halotherapy proponentsbelieve the same happens within the body, but research supportingsuch theories is lacking.

SKEPTICS ABOUND

An Australian study published in 2006 in the new England Journalof Medicine found that symptoms in cystic fibrosis patientsimproved after using a handheld nebulizer twice daily to deliver aconcentrated salt mist into the mouth. some studies in Russia havefound that halotherapy improves symptoms and reduces the need formedication in patients suffering with a variety of respiratorydiseases.

“Those publications are almost all in Russian and really notvery high-quality, controlled trials,” said Dr. Mario Castro, apulmonologist and professor at Washington University School ofMedicine. “At this point, there really is not strong evidence tosuggest that it is helpful.”

More research is needed measuring the salt concentration, lengthand number of treatments and symptoms, Slavin said. “Until someonedoes pulmonary function tests, measures outcomes and shows anobjective difference, you just can’t advise that anybody dothis.”

Juracsik said he learned about natural and alternative therapieswhile living in Russia for three years in the late 1990s, when hemet his wife, Lena. after moving back to the U.S., he worked insocial services for 11 years, driving people to doctor appointmentsand working as a medical interpreter.

His social service work left him disillusioned with the healthcare system, which he sees as too quick to label and turn tomedication. when Juracsik lost his job in August, his research intosalt therapy for his daughter presented itself as an option tobring the service to St. Louis.

Lucky for Carolyn Trauve, 70, of Columbia, Ill., who shared thesession in the salt room with Buehner. Trauve had been searchingfor a salt room near her home after trying halotherapy during atwo-week trip over Thanksgiving to visit her daughter in Boulder,Colo. after six sessions, her psoriasis — an autoimmune diseasethat causes rough, scaly patches on the skin — completelydisappeared for the first time in her life.

“I couldn’t believe it. I never expected it,” she said. She’sanxious to show her dermatologist the results at her nextappointment.