Dr. med. Fritz Helmut Hemmerich – Adaptonic´s midwife

Doctor, salutogenesis expert, and my mentor and companion on my journey for around 15 years.

When I talk about how Adaptonics came into being, I also have to talk about Dr. Fritz Helmut Hemmerich.

I have known him for around 15 years. During that time, he has been my therapist, mentor, advisor, and sometimes an uncomfortably probing questioner. He has accompanied me for many years—and played a decisive role in shaping the creation of Adaptonics.

A Midwife in Both Senses

The description “midwife of Adaptonics” is meant quite literally.

Fritz Helmut Hemmerich is a doctor and specialist in gynecology and obstetrics. After completing his specialist training, he worked as a senior physician and later for many years as chief physician of a gynecology clinic.

His work with long-term cancer patients eventually led him increasingly toward salutogenesis—that is, toward the question that would also become central to me and later to Adaptonics:

What keeps a person healthy?

Since the early 2000s, Fritz has worked intensively with the concept of salutogenesis in the Canary Islands. He ran a health center first on Lanzarote, then on Tenerife, and now also in Andalusia. At that time, he published, among other works, the book Turning Point Burnout—The Salutogenesis Concept.

The Founding of Adaptonics as a Salutogenic Measure

Fritz was not simply someone I eventually asked for professional advice about plant extracts.

He was one of the people who helped make it possible for this company to come into existence at all. Founding the company was his advice to me:

"I know of nothing that can contribute so much to the development of a person's character as founding a company."

Here, the "entrepreneur" is meant as the "essence of the human being," as every child demonstrates to us: Try, study, try again.

What initially emerged from this as the Healing Garden on Tenerife, and later became Adaptonics, was therefore more than the idea of selling just any products from the very beginning.

It was about a question that still occupies me today:

How can we create conditions in which health can emerge and be maintained?

The garden, working with plants, Artemisia annua, Cistus, Pine Pollen, adaptogens, and ultimately the development of our own extracts all grew out of this story. The original formulations of our extracts all go back to him:

"You could collect pine pollen—there's testosterone in it."

Me: (WTF!?) First, collect a hundred kilos (:

Salutogenesis Instead of Promises of Healing

Perhaps this was also the most important influence Fritz had on me.

Salutogenesis does not first ask how to fight an individual disease. Instead, it focuses on the resources people possess and the conditions that can promote health.

This perspective has shaped my work with plants as much as my understanding of Adaptonics.

That is why salutogenesis is now one of the major topics in our Adaptopedia—alongside Artemisia annua, Pine Pollen, and Cistus.

About Dr. Fritz Helmut Hemmerich

Dr. med. Fritz Helmut Hemmerich studied human medicine and philosophy in Bochum and Essen and earned his doctorate in the field of applying computer technology to medicine.

After completing his specialist training, he worked as a senior physician and later as chief physician in gynecology and obstetrics. Since the early 2000s, his professional focus has increasingly shifted toward salutogenesis.

On Tenerife, he ran the Eridanos Center for Salutogenesis. He has published books on salutogenesis, burnout, and meditation, among other subjects, and today works with salutogenesis, trauma, neurobiology, consciousness work, and supporting people through life and health crises.

Today, he goes by the name Friðhu.

Anyone who would like to learn more about Fritz, his work, and especially his own perspective on his unusual life journey should do so directly from him.

Thank You, Fritz!!!

After around 15 years of shared history, it is difficult to summarize a person's influence in just a few paragraphs.

Perhaps one sentence is enough:

Without Fritz, Adaptonics would not exist in its current form.

Curro Cachinero
Founder of Adaptonics