From a Pioneering Idea to the Blueprint for Preventive Medicine

In 2026, The Original Mayr Medical Resort on the shores of Lake Wörthersee, will mark 50 years since opening its doors as the first permanent home of the Mayr medical concept – long before “gut health” entered everyday language or became a global wellness trend.

The Original Mayr: Where It All Began

When German entrepreneur Rolf Deyhle founded the clinic in 1976, preventive medicine was not a concept people spoke about. If you felt unwell, you went to the doctor. If you didn’t, you waited. Deyhle rejected that logic entirely.

“He didn’t want to wait until he was ill before seeing a doctor,” says Managing Director Gabriella Schnitzler. “He wanted to see a doctor to make sure he never got ill. That idea alone was revolutionary.”

Instead of building a hotel, he created a place to stay well. And instead of following medical convention, he partnered with Dr Erich Rauch – one of Dr Franz Xaver Mayr’s most respected students, now recognised as the founder of modern Mayr medicine.

The clinic remains the only place where The Original Mayr concept has been practised continuously for five decades, evolving from Dr Mayr’s earliest diagnostics to the modern medical approach used today.

Together, they transformed a former golf holiday house into something that did not exist anywhere in the world: a medical retreat offering diagnostics, fasting, rest, and rehabilitation all under one roof. Even Austrian authorities struggled to categorise it at the time – a hotel with doctors, or a clinic with bedrooms? Getting approval took months of negotiations because they had never seen anything like it.

Everything Begins with the Gut

Mayr and Rauch centred their entire philosophy on one belief: that the gut is the origin of health, resilience and even mental clarity. As Dr Ursula Muntean-Rock, the head physician of The Original Mayr Medical Resort explains when recalling their founding idea: “If your gut is healthy, all your organs – the kidneys, the lungs, the liver – work as they should. However, if the gut is in trouble, the entire body is affected. And so is the mind.”

Early programmes were based on structured fasting stages, abdominal treatments, careful chewing, and non-negotiable silence during meals – not for discipline’s sake, but because digestion needed to rest. In the early years, guests who refused to follow the rules were asked to leave. It was a medical intervention, not a holiday.

From that point on, Mayr medicine was practised continuously by doctors trained directly by Dr Rauch and later by those he trained himself. The International Society of Mayr Physicians was founded at the medical resort and still considers it its spiritual home.

Decades of Quiet Influence

Throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, the medical resort became a discreet destination for those who valued prevention – from European chancellors to cultural figures, business leaders and actors. This was not a spa culture; it was a place to reset, rethink and return changed.

There was also a period when an entire wall in the doctor’s office was covered in photos of “Mayr babies” sent by patients who credited the cure with helping them conceive. That anecdote lives as a reminder of how profound a digestive reset can be.

A Blueprint Others Have Followed but Never Replaced

Many other centres have since adopted elements of the Mayr medical concept. But there is only one place where the method has been continuously developed from its original source – under medical leadership.

What Sets The Original Mayr Apart Today

Diagnostics before treatments – no “one-size-fits-all” programmes
A six-doctor medical team & a dedicated team of highly trained therapists on site every day
Food as therapy, not entertainment
Education as a lasting outcome: guests leave knowing how to live differently, not just how to detox
A focus on rebuilding health habits, not selling short-term cleansing
Privacy, protection and genuine medical care rather than performance wellness

In an era of supplements, self-tracking and online biohacking, The Original Mayr Medical Resort remains surprisingly simple: rebalance the digestive system, educate the person, and support lasting behavioural change.

Moving Beyond Longevity

The word “longevity” now appears everywhere, but at The Original Mayr, it was never the headline. It was a consequence. “People come here for competence, trust and a medically guided reset,” says Muntean-Rock. “We are not interested in chasing hashtags. We’ve been doing this for half a century, and we’re still refining it.”

At the heart of the medical offering stand two core programmes. Mayr Med Gut Health & Detox focuses on the gentle regeneration of the digestive system and the restoration of a balanced gut microbiome – the foundation of a strong immune system and long-term wellbeing. Mayr Med Diagnostic & Prevention unites state-of-the-art diagnostics with sustainable preventive care. It provides a comprehensive view of your individual health parameters, helps identify potential risks at an early stage and forms the basis for tailored therapeutic guidance.

The Original Mayr – where health becomes a way of life and fifty years of expertise guide the path forward.

Notes to Editors:
The Real Origin Story of the Mayr Cure

Around 1901, Dr Franz Xaver Mayr developed a diagnostic and therapeutic approach based solely on the digestive system.
He believed the bowel was the foundation of health, long before microbiome science emerged.
Dr Erich Rauch expanded the method, adding medical testing, regeneration therapies and theories that would later be proven by science.
In 1976, this method finally found a permanent home on the shores of Lake Wörthersee, and the cure became available beyond private practice for the first time.

About The Original Mayr Medical Resort:
Located in Austria, on the shores of Lake Wörthersee, The Original Mayr Medical Resort was the first centre for modern Mayr medicine. Since opening in 1976, The Original Mayr Medical Resort has been a pioneer in holistic health care, seamlessly blending modern Mayr medicine with comprehensive therapeutic approaches. It is an ideal place to detox, strengthen intestinal health and the immune system – to find new balance and inner peace.

50 Years of The Original Mayr Medical Resort