Add salt to bath water for a soothing soak

The names of some European spas - Bad Salzdetfurth, Bad Salzungen oder Bad Salzuflen - indicate that salt is an important part of the spa's program.

Visitors to those European spas and others immerse themselves in healing, briny water containing a minimum of 1.45 percent salt. The salt springs on which the spas are built are found nearly everywhere in Germany.

"Developing them is very expensive and so is using them," says Professor Karl-Ludwig Resch of the German Institute for Health Research in Bad Elster. Thus, there's little wonder that for centuries salt commonly has been known as "white gold".