Mayr medicine rests on one idea: most chronic complaints start in the gut, and resting the gut is how you deal with them. It is a medical protocol run by doctors, not a spa treatment, and the clinics that do it properly are serious places.
This page covers what the method is, where the clinics are, what each one is good for, what a week costs and who should not go. We have done the cure and we book these clinics, so most of what follows is the operational kind of detail.
What Mayr medicine is
Franz Xaver Mayr (1875-1965) was an Austrian physician who spent his career on the intestine. His conclusion was that most digestive systems are chronically overloaded, and that resting and retraining them changes energy, immunity, skin and mental clarity.
What the clinics practise today is Modern Mayr Medicine. It keeps Mayr’s manual diagnostics and the food discipline, and adds current laboratory work, functional medicine and orthomolecular therapy. The method is taught at medical universities in Austria and Germany, and most Mayr physicians belong to the International Society of Mayr Doctors.
The four pillars
- Rest: the digestive system is given time to recover
- Training: you relearn how to chew, and how to eat
- Cleansing: the intestine, liver, kidneys, lungs and skin are supported through the detoxification
- Substitution: the nutrients you are short of are replaced, and the gut flora is rebuilt
What the evidence actually shows
Be careful with the claims made for Mayr medicine, including some the clinics make themselves. To our knowledge no randomised controlled trial of the full Mayr protocol exists. The acid-base rationale offered for the alkaline powders rests on a hypothesis that has been tested and rejected several times.
What we can tell you is what we see. Guests sleep better within three or four nights. Energy is steadier by the end of the first week. Bloating and irritable bowel symptoms that had been constant for years go quiet, and that is the change clients mention most. Return rates at these clinics are high, and most of our own Mayr clients go back the following year.
Where the Mayr clinics are
Mayr medicine is Austrian and it stayed Austrian. Almost every clinic worth the trip is in Austria or southern Germany, within a few hours of where Mayr practised.
In Austria: VIVAMAYR Maria Wörth on Lake Wörth in Carinthia, MAYRLIFE on Lake Altaussee in the Salzkammergut, Lanserhof Lans in Tyrol above Innsbruck, Park Igls also in Tyrol, and the Original Mayr Medical Resort in Carinthia. There is also a MAYRLIFE day clinic in Vienna for guests who cannot take a week off.
In Germany: Lanserhof Tegernsee in Bavaria, Lanserhof Sylt on the North Sea island, and Buff Medical Resort at Konstanz on Lake Constance.
Is there a Mayr clinic in London?
Not a residential one, and this changed recently. VIVAMAYR ran a day clinic in Mayfair for ten years and closed it on 8 July 2026. They are looking for a new London site. Lanserhof runs a medical club in London at The Arts Club, which does diagnostics and treatments by appointment.
Neither is a Mayr cure. The method depends on eating the clinic food, being examined every morning and having nothing else to do, and none of that survives going home in the evening. If you only have London, the day clinics are worth using between cures rather than instead of one.
Is there a Mayr clinic in Switzerland?
No. Guests looking for the Swiss equivalent usually go to Chenot Palace Weggis, which runs the Chenot Method. That is a different protocol, built on detoxification and energy medicine, with a similar intent and a similar level of medical supervision. We compare the two in Chenot Method or Mayr Medicine.
The clinics we recommend
VIVAMAYR Maria Wörth, Austria
VIVAMAYR opened in 2004 on Lake Wörth and it is where Modern Mayr Medicine was defined. It is the clinic we send the most people to, and the one guests return to year after year with the same doctor.
VIVAMAYR PURE is the base program and six modules sit on top of it, covering gut health, mental resilience, healthy aging, immune support, recovery and a full health check. From €5,415 for 7 nights, with the room and the food included. Your program is a framework, set after the first consultation and adjusted daily by the doctor who keeps your file, usually for years if you return.
What clients tell us: the method works, the same medical team knows their history, the lake is beautiful, and it is the best value at this level of medicine.
MAYRLIFE, Austria
MAYRLIFE was VIVAMAYR Altaussee until the two managements went separate ways and it took its own name. It sits on Lake Altaussee, higher and more alpine than VIVAMAYR, which is south towards Italy. The base program is the MAYRLIFE Classic. From €5,110 for 7 nights.
It carries more programs than the other Mayr clinics, preventive and curative, and it is the one we suggest when inflammation is the problem. As everywhere in Mayr medicine, the program is a starting point and gets rewritten after your diagnostics.
Lanserhof, Austria and Germany
Lanserhof opened in Lans in 1984, forty years before longevity became a category. It runs three residential clinics and they differ mainly on setting and price: Lans is from €5,390, Sylt is from €6,480 and Tegernsee, the flagship, is from €8,435, each for seven nights with the room and the Lanserhof Classic program. We compare the three in detail in the Lanserhof price guide.
Lanserhof is the most technical of the Mayr clinics. The diagnostic equipment, the INUSpheresis blood filtration used for chronic inflammatory conditions, and the brain health program all go further than the others. Mayr medicine is the foundation rather than the whole offer.
Buff Medical Resort, Germany
Buff opened in 2025 at Konstanz, facing south over Lake Constance, and it is owned and run by the Buff family, who came from luxury hospitality. The building is the largest wood construction in Europe. A week starts from €4,550, which makes it the most affordable serious Mayr clinic we recommend.
Alongside the Mayr medicine it has real cardiovascular expertise, with a heart MRI and its own specialists. A number of guests come after cancer treatment, and the team has built up experience rebuilding metabolism with Mayr medicine and apheresis. The whole diet is gluten free.
Park Igls and the Original Mayr
Two more worth knowing, both in Austria. Park Igls sits above Innsbruck and runs Modern Mayr Cuisine, from €3,639. The Original Mayr Medical Resort is in Carinthia, from €5,160.
Harald Stossier, who made the method modern
Modern Mayr Medicine has an author. Harald Stossier trained under Dr Rauch, became medical director of VIVAMAYR in 2004, and did the work of turning Mayr’s century-old clinical observations into something that holds up next to current diagnostics.
He had been consulting on complementary medicine for the Medical Chamber of Carinthia and the Austrian Medical Association since 1988, well before integrative medicine had a name in Europe. His book The Viva Mayr Diet is where most people outside Austria first meet the method (we have it in our library at home!)
You will find his influence in every clinic on this page, including the ones that now compete with VIVAMAYR.
What a Mayr cure costs
Every clinic here prices the same way: a program fee on top of a room, for a set number of nights, with the food, the consultations and the group activities included. Each figure below is a from price for seven nights in an entry room on the base program. They come from our rate engine and move when the clinics move them.
- Buff Medical Resort, €4,550
- Park Igls, €3,639
- MAYRLIFE, €5,110
- Original Mayr Medical Resort, €5,160
- Lanserhof Lans, €5,390
- VIVAMAYR Maria Wörth, €5,415
- Lanserhof Sylt, €6,480
- Lanserhof Tegernsee, €8,435
Then add the treatments your doctor prescribes after the first consultation. Very few guests stay on the base program alone, and the final invoice reflects that. Ask us for a realistic total before you book, because we quote the whole thing rather than the headline.
For the Austrian clinics specifically, our guide to the Mayr fasting cures in Austria puts VIVAMAYR, MAYRLIFE and Lanserhof Lans side by side.
What a cure is actually like
Before you arrive
Your cure starts at home, and the guests who prepare have a much easier first three days. Taper the coffee and the sugar over the two weeks before you travel, and cut back on gluten and dairy. Drink three litres of water per day. Bring recent blood work if you have it.
Do not book a gastronomic dinner for the night you land, and do not arrive straight off a work crisis. And if you take a GLP-1 drug, tell the clinic early, because it changes the protocol.
A day in a Mayr clinic
The shape is similar everywhere. Mornings are medical, afternoons are treatments and movement, evenings are early and quiet.
- 6:30 to 7:30, morning rituals. Herbal tea, often Epsom salt for its cleansing effect, sometimes a spoon of virgin oil. Then breathing work and gentle movement to wake the digestion up.
- 8:00 to 9:00, therapeutic breakfast. Breakfast is the main meal in Mayr medicine, which surprises people. Usually a broth and a specific grain preparation. There is no buffet and there is very little variety, on purpose.
- 9:00 to 12:00, consultations and treatments. The doctor sees you daily, sometimes twice. This is when the abdominal massage happens, along with diagnostics, colon hydrotherapy, infusions, apheresis or lymphatic drainage.
- 12:00 to 14:00, lunch. The second meal, still carefully controlled. This is where the chewing is taught and where most guests find the first few days hardest.
- 14:00 to 16:00, active recovery. Walks, forest bathing, gentle yoga or Pilates, and nutrition or cooking workshops.
- 16:00 to 18:00, treatments. Massage, osteopathy, hydrotherapy, saunas, cold therapy, acupuncture or reflexology, depending on the clinic.
- 18:00 to 20:00, a light dinner. Sometimes the same food as lunch, sometimes only broth and vegetable preparations, depending on where you are in the protocol.
- Evening. Early nights, some lectures, and time on your own. That last part matters more than it sounds, because the lifestyle change needs somewhere to be thought about.
The four dietary phases
Therapeutic fasting comes first for some guests, with herbal teas and alkaline broths for a day or two, sometimes longer, for as long as the doctors think it useful.
Then the training diet: specific foods chosen to retrain digestion, often particular grains, boiled potatoes and carefully prepared vegetables. MAYRLIFE is known for its bread, baked with its own mix of grains.
Then gentle expansion, where foods come back gradually and the emphasis stays on chewing and on talking as little as possible while you eat. Finally lifestyle integration, which is the dietitian consultations, the cooking classes and the coaching that make the rest of it survive contact with your normal week.
The parts that define it
The daily abdominal massage is the signature treatment. A Mayr doctor, or occasionally a specially trained practitioner, works the abdomen manually to stimulate intestinal function. It takes a few days to get used to if there is inflammation or constipation, and guests end up describing it as the part they miss.
Chewing is the thing everyone remembers. Thirty to forty chews per bite, which sounds absurd until you notice you are full after a few mouthfuls. You also do not drink during meals. You drink plenty, up to half an hour before eating and again around forty minutes after, which stops the digestive chemistry being diluted.
Most clinics give you a base powder to handle the acidification that comes with fasting and detoxing. It takes the edge off the headaches and the mood swings of the first days. And you spend time in the toilets.
Who Mayr medicine suits
- Chronic digestive problems, including irritable bowel symptoms and food intolerances that have never been pinned down
- Rebuilding after something hard: surgery, cancer treatment, long COVID, or a long stretch of chronic illness
- Metabolic trouble and weight that will not move, including guests on or coming off a GLP-1 drug
- Chronic fatigue and the kind of low energy that has been investigated and never explained
- Autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, as an integrative addition to what your own doctors are doing
- Preventive work, if you are well and want to stay that way, which is most of the returning guests
Who should not go
This is not a holiday and it does not work as one. If you are travelling with someone who is not doing the cure, one of you will have a bad week. If you want to work through it, pick a clinic that expects that and tell us, because most of the day is committed.
If restriction of any kind frightens you, say so early. And if there is an eating disorder anywhere in your history, tell us before anything is booked, because it changes which clinic we would suggest and what we would say to them. There are softer routes to the same result and we can recommend them.
Choosing between them
The short version, if you want one line each:
- VIVAMAYR for the deepest gut expertise, and the best value at the top level
- MAYRLIFE for the alpine version of the same experience
- Lanserhof when you want the diagnostics and the technology: they integrate the best of Mayr medicine, western medicine, and energy medicine, in really high-end health resorts
- Buff if you would like to try the latest and newest Mayr medicine clinic, and their focus on heart health and altitude training is particularly promising
- Park Igls when you want Modern Mayr at the gentlest end of the range
If you are still not sure, tell us what you are dealing with, what you have already tried and when you can travel. We have sent a lot of clients to all of these and we will tell you which one we would book for you. You pay the same rate as going direct. The clinic pays us a commission after your stay, which is how we keep the advice independent and this service free.
