Ancient Chinese literature usually defines the word tao as "the Way the universe works". R.L. Wing, in his 1986 translation of the Tao Te Ching, notes that Lao Tzu, a sixth century B.C. philosopher, defined tao as "a unified field of forces" best perceived through a synthesis of analytical and intuitive observations of nature and its physical laws.

   Is there a Way of well-being?

   Recent, convergent results of research in seemingly different areas (neuropeptides, adaptogens, immune system dysfunctions, multiple-personality disorders, stress, exceptional abilities, DNA sequencing, phytochemistry, etc.) suggest a rather powerful technique for maintaining mental and physiological well-being (including general viral, bacterial and fungal prophylaxis), as well as ways to facilitate projections of consciousness into body (assisting normal healing processces).

   Naturally-occuring antibacterial and anti-carcinogenic foodstuffs (and their derivatives) may act to "prep" the body for such a synergy.

      One researcher involved with current chemopreventive/neurotoxic studies, Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center/U. of California, Irvine has stated that:
   "...a single agent won't give positive answers. We may need a combination of dietary factors, or it could be something in foods other than the isolated nutrient that's responsible for the observed protective effects."

   Non-dietary factors may prove to be controlling partners in such a strategy.

   It has been recognized since 1968, when a cancerous kidney was mistakenly transplanted in an immune-compromised person, that the immune system plays a large role in cancer prevention.
   What is only recently becoming evident is the extraordinary interactive relationship between the immune system and the mind.

          Dr. Paul J. Rosch, President of the American Institute of Stress:
      "...they use the same chemical messengers to communicate, and both have the ability to remember. Further links are likely, because there are networks of nerve fibers in the thymus, spleen and lymph nodes, which indicate that these important mediators of immune activity may actually be hard-wired to the central nervous system."

   Leroy Hood, Chairman of Caltech's biology division, inventor of the DNA sequencer:
      "It looks like we'll be able to say that our immune system is constructed from elements that evolved from molecules originally operating in the nervous system....in one immune gene superfamily, that connection is absolutely explicit!
      It has eight multigene families and twelve single-gene members identified so far. The genes fall into three catagories: those connected only to the immune system, those primarily in the nervous system, and those shared by both the immune and nervous systems. And we have absolutely no idea what the shared sets do! But it's a beautiful relationship..."

   Findings reported at the March 21, 1989 annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology provided further insight into brain-immune system links.

   University of Alabama researchers (Raymond N. Hiramoto, prof. of microbiology; Vithal Ghanta, assc. prof. of biology and microbiology; H. Brent Solvasson, grad. student in microbiology dept.) have shown that at least in mice, the brain can be taught to control part of the immune system.

   In the study, mice were exposed to the pungent mothball smell of heated camphor for one hour. Immediately afterward, they were injected with a drug called poly I:C, which mimics a viral infection and causes certain immune system cells (natural killer cells) to become more active. NK cells are "general purpose", first-line-of-attack responders and are important in fighting viruses and tumors.
      After only one lesson, the mice learned to connect the camphor smell with what seemed to be a viral infection. When they were exposed to the camphor again, without being injected, the "conditioned" mice were found to have increased the activity of their natural killer cells by 20 to 100 percent. Mice that hadn't been conditioned or were not re-exposed to the smell did not show increases in immune system activity.