Taiwan Today

Early on a Thursday morning at Chang Gung Biotechnology Corp.'s Heart Transformation Center in Taipei's financial district, a class begins with meditation enhanced by inspirational music. Next, the participants--mostly working women who will head to the office after the class ends--spin and stretch their limbs and torsos in an activity called "vortex stretching," which utilizes a spiral movement to completely stretch the joints with the aim of bringing about "structural realignment."

Although the class at the Heart Transformation Center might appear to some to have a new age feel, the theory behind the exercises was developed by John D. Young, the former head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology and Cell Biology at Rockefeller University in New York City and a former member of various advisory committees for the National Cancer Institute in the United States. Young's scientific credentials are impressive--he is a medical doctor, has a Ph.D. in immunology, cell biology and biophysics, and has published more than 300 articles and books in the areas of immunology, cell biology, biophysics and medicine, including cover stories in Scientific American, Science, Nature, Cell, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A., and lead articles in prestigious medical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.

"I like the word 'vortex,'" Young says. "It's akin to evolution, always tending to reach upwards, no matter whether it pertains to physical or spiritual dimensions." Vortex stretching is just one part of what Young refers to as "Primordia Medicine," which has the ultimate goal of bringing together science and spirituality, traditional healing and state-of-the-art technology, as well as the natural and human worlds. While Young's ambitions are lofty, however, he pursues them with the everyday scientific tools of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.

Multicultural Background

Young was born in Taiwan but spent his childhood in Brazil. He moved with his family to Sãn Paulo when he was little, at a time when living and educational opportunities appeared significantly better overseas to many Taiwanese. In many ways, he says, he doesn't see himself as completely Chinese, but rather as a global citizen. "Being brought up in Brazil provided me with a multicultural heritage that I'll always treasure," Young says. "It has softened my view of the world and exposed me to the inequalities of society, namely those that exist between the rich and the poor. It has also added a joy for life that I haven't experienced through other cultures."

Young's love affair with science began at a young age. "Since I was five, I've been enamored by the prospect of making breakthroughs in science and medicine," he says, "and this fascination with discoveries has been the main force propelling me to take a scientific career." Studies would come easily for him. After earning his M.D., Young moved to New York City to pursue a Ph.D. at Rockefeller University as well as medical training through the Cornell Medical College-New York Hospital, two of the largest medical research facilities in the world at the time. Rockefeller is also known for producing 23 Nobel Prize winners in the fields of chemistry and medicine since 1912. He says that he is nostalgic about his student days in New York City, particularly about the Rockefeller environment, calling it the "Mecca of science."

Young feels that his education in the United States came both inside and outside the classroom, saying that the country also taught him "the importance of 'autonomy with responsibility.' That is, while being free for all, the US calls for individuals to exert responsibility and a concern for the collective whole through a respect for due diligence and process as well as through an emphasis on both civility and civic responsibility, notions which are very needed in Taiwan at this time."

Young chose to specialize in molecular immunology and cell biology because he believes that immunity is at the core of every disease. "I've always been interested in understanding how the body, as the host, interacts with pathogens to result in diseases," he says. "It's only through an interaction with the host that a pathogen can produce disease."

By the age of 21, Young says he had already discovered the mechanisms through which white blood cells kill tumor cells and virus-infected cells, and these findings can be found today in all basic medicine textbooks. Among the more interesting discoveries he made was the finding that the white blood cells do not just kill target cells by inflicting injuries directly, but also by triggering a mechanism in those cells that causes them to commit suicide.

Holistic Healthcare

Since 1998, Young has been splitting his time between the United States and Taiwan. That year, in Taiwan, Young founded Chang Gung Biotechnology to fulfill his ideal of holistic healthcare by taking into account the many interrelated physical and non-physical factors that affect health, wellness and disease, including the psychosocial and spiritual dimensions of people's lives. In addition to operating the Heart Transformation Center, the company offers products related to health and the environment, such as natural detergents, nutritional supplements and devices for improving water quality--products that the company sells through its 70 health centers. "We use the Heart Transformation Center to educate the public about the impact of both environmental and lifestyle factors on health. These include factors like good and bad air, light, water and soil, as well as proper nutrition, breathing, exercising and emotional management. At the center we demonstrate how to meditate, exercise and eat well, and we have many other modalities of treatments that bridge the latest technologies with ancient cultures," Young says.

Food is one of the big draws at Young's center, with many first-time visitors marveling at the rainbow of fruit, vegetables and other natural foods available. And while the food certainly looks appealing, on a deeper level it is representative of Young and Chang Gung's holistic approach to health. "Due to the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, most of our soil is short of trace elements today," says Stella Chen, Young's assistant. "We are seeing more and more chronic diseases appearing at an earlier age, and these include type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer and perhaps heart disease and high blood pressure. Although today's higher stress levels play a role, the impact of poor nutrition on health is becoming more critical. We advocate the use of organic cultivation methods such as putting low-cost organic fertilizers and trace elements back into the soil so that it can return to its original healthy state. The soil becomes wholesome again, and our body reacts positively to the foods grown in this kind of restored soil."

"Nutrition is another example where science can easily be reconciled with the common sense of ancient folklore," Young adds. "Thus, we emphasize the importance of the various food groups, and among these, we add emphasis to trace elements, which must be entirely acquired from the outside--the body cannot produce minerals! In addition, we propose various optimal proportions based on the latest nutritional recommendations issued by reputable organizations like the National Research Council of the US, coupled with the knowledge accumulated from ancient cultures."

"What I emphasize is the right proportion of foods, and these include trace elements, vitamins, proteins, oils and carbohydrates," Young says. "I believe many of the current fads in diet are actually wrong and will be disproved easily by hard science. For instance, some diets based solely on animal proteins can be very harmful to the body. Instead, I emphasize the need for a diet with an optimal amount of vegetable-based proteins that also takes chelated trace elements into account. Moreover, the amount of proteins that we ingest must be lowered from the earlier recommended 35 to 40 percent to the lower amounts of 20 to 25 percent."

The emphasis on eating properly is a reflection of Young's philosophy of taking a proactive attitude toward maintaining one's physical, mental, social and spiritual health instead of waiting for problems to develop. "The general idea is for us to pay attention to our lifestyle before symptoms emerge and develop proactive strategies that can prevent disease and maintain and improve our health," he says. "That's also why we have called our form of healthcare 'Primordia Medicine,' because it represents the most primordial and integrated form of medicine, one that is known to all cultures. In my approach to a comprehensive, integrated, whole-person, body-mind-spirit form of health, I've used practically every tool available to me from the sciences and medicine. Nowadays, I believe that this is the only way to go."

To be sure, Young has run into skepticism about his holistic approach in the past. "When I first started promoting the need for an integrated body-mind-spirit balance as the basis for health some 25 years ago with a few friends, we were looked upon as going against the mainstream," he says. "But today, this concept of balanced lifestyle and integration of body-mind-spirit is generally accepted around the world."

"What I am preaching is not really new age health," Young says, distinguishing Primordia Medicine from other movements that take a holistic view of health, but sometimes follow a less than scientific approach. "New age implies a hippie-ish movement emphasizing spirituality above everything else, including reason. Unlike new age teachings, all our teachings are imbued with science and solid evidence. Our way of presentation is always predicated on evidentiary support."

While Young insists that Primordia Medicine be backed by scientific evidence, his approach extends far beyond Western clinical practices. "What we are teaching is a form of health that falls completely in line with all the ancient schools of medicine, including Western medicine, not just traditional Chinese medicine [TCM]," he says. "Thus, the entire history of mankind, with all its records of anecdotal evidence, fully supports the notions taught here."

A Wide Net

In essence, Young's approach is to cast a wide net. While health scientists are necessarily focused on narrow disciplines, he feels that there is a pressing need to integrate these disciplines, as well as aspects of traditional medicine that have proven to possess scientifically verifiable positive impacts on health. "Our novelty with this program is that we've combined all modalities of treatments into one single forum of healing," he says. "We've taken this ancient form of healing to the 21st century insofar as the use of modern vocabulary and terminology are concerned and by adapting new breakthrough technologies and sciences to confirm the veracity of what is taught here."

Another tenet of Primordia Medicine is that the individual must exert and take control of her or his own health, as opposed to turning it over to doctors or hospitals to manage. "In this sense, we're advocating a proactive attitude towards health that acknowledges the need for a radical change in lifestyle in order to ensure health," Young says. "This radical change encompasses every aspect of one's daily life, and it is not limited only to bodily issues, but extends to mental and spiritual health."

Young cites his organization's strong emphasis on exercise as an example of this proactive approach, noting that it can prevent the need to seek healthcare in the first place. "For instance, we believe that exercising daily and correctly is key to optimal health," Young says. "In addition to providing the scientific basis for this view, we go further to emphasize the right mixture of exercise modalities, which from our vantage point must necessarily include muscle-building, aerobics and stretching. Muscle-building for instance stimulates the thyroid gland as well as protein metabolism, allowing for a middle-aged person to retain muscle mass, which would otherwise be lost at the expense of fat deposition. Stimulating protein metabolism would also reverse many of the natural aging effects that come with age."

Implementation Emphasized

Young is not content with merely developing concepts regarding holistic, balanced healthcare, but also seeks to develop grass-roots programs that allow this balance to be implemented. "That's the difference between our program and those I see elsewhere in the world," he says. "We have a comprehensive implementation program that takes into account every single facet of this balance--food, water, exercise, breathing, nutrition, soil, agriculture, lighting and hygiene. Our goal has always been to make this into a practical program that can be adopted by the everyday layman."

One way Young's organization has put this concept into practice is by launching a program for children's education that aims to provide all of the environmental and social factors necessary for a child's healthy development. "In 1999, with other experts in education, we created the Alliance for Childhood, which now has branches around the world. Earlier still, we created the Alliance for Children's Wisdom Development," he says. The main premise of these programs is to create an understanding of the need for an integrated approach to education, as it is strongly related to a child's health. "A child is more than just a summation of learning that comes from a textbook," Young says. "A young child follows intricate cycles of development and if these same development stages can be fully mastered insofar as learning is concerned, then learning will be optimal since it is coupled with genuine interest and a lack of stress."

Young's organization has already put this healthy learning concept into practice around the world. "We have actually taken a simple program of implementation to thousands of schools in [mainland] China as well as in the US, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and there we emphasize the need for a hands-on learning process that embraces ethics, classics recitation, arts, reading and writing, drama, personal hygiene and participation in landscaping and maintaining the school grounds, in addition to academic excellence," he says.

In a sense, Young's emphasis on integrating the fragmented, disparate approaches to healthcare found around the world also represents a manifesto aimed at greater social and environmental harmony. "Early on, many skeptics frowned at my preaching about environmental health and social health, whereas Western medicine is mainly concerned with individual health," Young says. "I believe that today, no skeptic can argue against the premises outlined here, namely that the environment and society in general can have a direct impact on the health of the individual."

Write to Tso Lon-di at londi@mail.gio.gov.tw