In recent years, healthcare has come to realize the importance of preventing illness before it breaks out. However, the study of “fatigue” - one of the 3 bio-energetic alarms - has largely fallen behind in the area of preventative medicine. This is because, despite the fact that “fatigue” is known to be a cause of many illnesses, it has not been fully unraveled. According to Kuragaki et al. of the Fatigue Study Group at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the trial calculation of domestic economic loss caused by clinical fatigue amongst the potential labor participating population is 1.2 trillion yen. So this is not only a health issue, but also a social problem, which requires a solution as soon as possible.
After the 1980s, when illnesses in which fatigue was the chief complaint - such as chronic fatigue syndrome and death from overwork - became social issues, the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study Group, Fatigue Study Group and Fatigue Study Group at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology each began their studies to figure out the scientific meaning of fatigue pathology. As a result, knowledge about fatigue had exponentially progressed and the level of fatigue study in Japan had reached that of being a world-wide leader. Meanwhile, the social needs for anti-fatigue health care continued to increase.
As a result, in fiscal year 2004, the “Formation of the Basis of Study for Overcoming Fatigue” was adopted by the 21st Century COE Program. Hiroyoshi Watanabe, professor of System Neuroscience at Osaka City University leads the program in conjunction with the entire medical school. The 3 main organizations involved in this project are the key players in fatigue study: the International Fatigue Study Center, which leads clinical fatigue study, the Fatigue Clinical Center, which undertakes research in the form of clinical studies, and the Anti-fatigue Food and Medicine Development Center, which works to develop foods and medicines that can overcome fatigue. They closely cooperate with each other in an attempt to prevail over fatigue. We opened our chronic fatigue outpatient clinic in April of 2005, together with the “Fatigue Laboratory”, to work on an objective assessment of fatigue and develop new technologies.
Fatigue is a social issue that causes huge economic loss. To support Japan’s future, it is important - really, a societal requirement - to study areas like anti-fatigue foods. This symposium, “Fatigue and Recovery” is a breakthrough program in that area. Leading researchers in the field will show you the latest findings in the study of fatigue mechanisms and the current knowledge of anti-fatigue foods. We’d like all researchers and those in food-related businesses to participate in this symposium in order to maintain cooperation in this field.
On Saturday, July 22nd and Sunday, July 23rd in 2006, the second Japanese Society of Fatigue Science will be held at the Osaka International Convention Center. I will be the conference chairman. We hope to welcome many participants. Thank you.

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Japanese Society of Food Chemistry and FFI Journal EDITORIAL OFFICE jointly hosted the "fatigue and recovery" symposium on September 9, 2005 at Osaka-Yakugyo-Nenkin-Kaikan Hall with 170 participants.
At first Yoshiki Nishizawa, Professor of Osaka City University Medical School, gave his address, the following lectures were spoken: "Effects of carbohydrate-protein beverages on endurance performance & muscle damage" by Michael J. Saunders, Ph.D., Department of Kinesiology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, U.S.A.; "Effect of carbohydrate/protein supplements on recovery from exercise" by John L. Ivy, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, U.S.A.; "Active fatige of skeletal muscle" by Satoshi Matsunaga of Institute for Health and Sport Sciences, Osaka City University; "Manifestation of Central Fatigue and Tgf-Beta in Brain" by Kazuo Inoue, Assistant Professor of Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University; "Development of anti fatige food for specified health use" by Osami Kajimoto, Assistant Professor of CENTER FOR HEALTH CARE OSAKA UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES and an administrator and CSO of Sogo-Ikagaku-Kenkyusho; and "Mechanism making chronic fatigue" by Hirohiko Kuratsune, Department of Health Science, Faculty of Health Science for Welfare, Kansai University of Welfare Science.
Due to the fact that 80% or more of Japanese people live with tiredness, speakers and participants actively discussed the mechanism of fatigue, measuring methods, or a difference between physical and mental fatigue, and after the discussions many participants enjoyed the social gathering where they deepened exchanges in opinions.
In order to inform others of the contents of this symposium, this issue reports the outlines of those four lectures.

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In previous papers, we reported on a new method for evaluation of positive effects of herbal dishes using radar charts and discussed its theoretical background in detail. In the present paper, we compare the radar charts for some Kampo medicines as well as herbal dishes which have been prescribed for the same diseases. They show similar patterns in most cases and it is concluded from these results that radar charts may be used to assess the biological activities of herbal dishes in comparison with Kampo prescriptions.

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Since 1997, we conducted a series of studies to examine a low glycemic index (GI) education program for the Japanese elderly who generally consumed white rice (WR) as a staple. We obtained the following results from these studies.
1. WR was considered suitable to be used as a reference food.
2. A "Rice meal and GI Table" was constituted with 116 items of rice and its related foods.
3. The combination of WR with vinegar, dairy products, soy products and grated yam (Tororo) significantly decreased the GI value of WR.
4. The objectives of a low GI education were determined.
Applying these basic studies, we are now examining the effectiveness of a low GI education among borderline Type 2 diabetics in a randomized control trial. The trial commenced among the elderly living in community in the summer of 2004.

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It is well-known that sesame has many functions for maintaining good health. The functions include anticancer, antioxidant and so on. Especially, the antioxidative activity of sesame oil is much higher than other edible oils. This phenomenon suggests that sesame oil or sesame seed contains a strong antioxidant. The antioxidative lignans were then isolated from sesame seed. Moreover, potential antioxidants were isolated and their chemical structures were determined. The structure of potential antioxidants was glucosides of the lignans. These lignan glucosides are hydrolyzed to antioxidative lignans in the body.

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In Russia, there are two important institutes that function as oblepikha research stations. One is the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in Novosibirsk city. The breeding of new cultivars began at this institute in 1959, and eleven excellent examples have so far been developed. In the second research station, the Siberian Horticultural Institute at the Russian Academy of Agricultural Science in Barnaul city, breeding was commenced in 1956, and thirteen excellent cultivars have been developed. The cultivars are used for fruit production mainly in the Russian Altai region, the harvest being processed for production of juice, jam, wine and confectioneries. Fruit oil and seed oil are extracted and purified for cosmetics and pharmacological products by a commercial oblepikha company in Biysk city.

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The Jomon period lasted about ten thousand years from 10,000 B.C. to 300 B.C.
The period was a pre-cultivation period, and the people acquired their foodstuffs by collecting, hunting and fishing. Their foodstuffs were nuts such as acorns, root crops such as yam, wild plants such as bracken, fish such as red sea bream, shellfish such as short-necked clam, and meats such as wild boar and duck. Among them, nuts such as acorns are starchy foods and the best foods from a calorimetric viewpoint. The people converted acorns with an astringent taste to edible foods by getting rid of the harshness.
A great deal of acorns were dug out of many ruins of the Jomon period. It was verified that acorns were the staple food for Jomon people by stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen, and residual fat analysis on the remains from the Jomon period. It is thought that the prototype of the typical Japanese-style meal was born in the Jomon period.

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