Positive Health Online

Born into a privileged family in the 1960s at the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the young James Zhou was raised by Tsaoist monks in the mountains of South China, after his father, a prominent barrister, was murdered by Red Guards. At the age of 7 he started learning kung fu, acupuncture, acupressure, t'ai chi and herbal medicine. At the age of 15 he was a fully trained 'barefoot doctor' schooled in the skills of herbal medicine. As the Cultural Revolution ended, James Zhou graduated from Beijing University with a BSc in Agriculture Science and an MS in Plant Genetics. In 1990 he graduated from the University of Iowa in the USA with a doctorate degree in Genetics and Biochemistry. He joined the faculty of Pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine under contract to create cancer drug treatments. After ten long years without any effective 'cures for cancer', Dr Zhou decided to return back to his roots – traditional Chinese herbal medicine. Today, Heba Laboratories on the edge of suburbian Middletown in Connecticut is believed to be the first ever laboratory in the USA to combine ongoing clinical research of traditional Chinese herbs with product formulation. Among his peers Dr Zhou is reckoned to be one of the foremost experts in the field of medicinal mushrooms, and he may also be the only scientist who regularly tests every single herbal formula in his own body for safety and efficacy before releasing them onto the market.