Just finished reading “Vitiligo: Etiology and Cure” by Xinghong Yang (available here) — and I feel like I just wandered out of a medical conference and straight into a monastery.

The paper is a bold fusion of immunology, emotional health, genetic predispositions… and karmic imprints. Yes, that karma. It offers a vision where vitiligo isn’t just a clinical diagnosis, but a metaphysical echo — a Dharma Doctor’s diagnosis, if you will. 

Karma is often misunderstood as simple “cause and effect” — do good, receive good; do bad, face bad. But in deeper traditions, it’s more about the subtle chain of actions, intentions, and consequences across time — shaping not just what happens to us, but how we experience and respond to life itself.

The author proposes that vitiligo may stem not just from genetic and environmental factors, but also from the metaphysical consequences of one’s past actions — in this life or another. It weaves together immunological pathways, genetic predispositions, emotional states, and karmic imprints into one sprawling, audacious framework.

Now, it’s not that I’m uncomfortable with the idea of karma. And I’m certainly not in the business of dismissing ideas that resonate with billions of people around the world. Karma, after all, has been a cornerstone of spiritual traditions for millennia.

And it’s not like metaphysical concepts and science have never crossed paths before — I still vividly remember Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes passionately arguing (video) for the unity of science and religion during Roundtable on Vitiligo back in 2012 (program).

But bringing karma into the etiology and potential cure of vitiligo? That’s definitely a first for me.

From a strictly scientific standpoint, however, the challenge lies in the testability of such hypotheses. How do you design a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial for karma? How do you quantify it, let alone isolate it as a variable from stress, oxidative damage, or T-cell mischief?

Of course, there’s an ancient irony here. Modern science itself emerged from the world’s ancient monasteries — centers for learning and education long before the Enlightenment. Yet their paths diverged eons ago.

And perhaps I would agree with Prof. Gad Saad, who wisely said: “Religion should not pontificate about scientific matters, and science should not pontificate about moral matters.”

Likewise, publishing a (quasi) scientific paper rooted in the metaphysics of karma may stretch the borders of each domain a little too far for comfort.

Still, on a deeper human level, there’s something hauntingly beautiful about this attempt. Healing, after all, has always been more than just fixing cells; it’s about restoring balance — body, mind, and maybe even soul.

In the end, whether through cytokines or samsara, the search for balance continues.

Curious what others think — can science and metaphysics really walk this path together, or are they chasing parallel dreams?

Yan Valle,

CEO VRF

Suggested reading

• Ayahuasca as a Potential Therapy for Vitiligo. A Journey into the Mind-Body Connection