Tummo a Tibetan Kagyu lineage practice could be applied in areas with extreme cold climates, such as Russia, to prevent and treat heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia and influenza if developed, Rinad Minvaleyev, a physiologist, mathematician and the team’s senior researcher, said.
“In fact, Tum-Mo is about the human being’s adaptation to low temperatures where thermo-dynamic functioning of a human liver is activated to further regulate the heating process,” said Minvaleyev, referring to a mathematical formula he co-established last year.
Irina Arkhipova, a yoga specialist, who was head of the mission and architect of St. Petersburg’s Search for Lost Knowledge Program, which holds annual mountaineering events aimed at promoting medical science, said that although “there were considerable breakthroughs in our mission, it would be immature to reveal the exact outcomes with accuracy, pending the ongoing laboratory examinations.”
The team paid visits to Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in search of Tum-Mo’s medical secrets, currently on the verge of being lost to posterity because “the last lama who practiced Tum-Mo in that part of the Himalayan Mountains died last year,” leaving scant oral traces of the ancient tradition, Arkhipova said.
However, after visits to about 40 monasteries, monks showed Arkhipova’s team a route across the Kully Gorge, reputed for its unpredictably harsh weather, to the top of the Rotang ridge, one of the rare spots where until recently Tum-Mo was practiced.
However the team did not reach the Rotang because of snow in the middle of the Kully Gorge, blocking the way.
“We resorted to practicing yoga on the ice surfaces beneath the waterfalls in the Rotang Valley, and everything was fantastic even for those who were on such a mission for the first time,” she said