In recent years, as people's lifestyles have changed and we've become more health conscious, there's been a stronger demand for food products that are healthier and/or have added value. This means that people not only want food products that contain various ingredients, but also have functional ingredients that are sufficiently effective to maintain health.
Due to the increase in the health-conscious movement, we can expect the market for health food products with functional ingredients, including health food products and supplements, to continue to expand. Additionally, there has been a marked increase in the awareness of alternative healthcare and self-medication, meaning that more consumers are purchasing health food products to prevent disease and conserve/enhance health, just because they are easy to obtain. Unfortunately, they do this without careful consideration.
The health food product market stimulates people's willingness to purchase these products by annually replacing product types and using advertising images that give people high expectations of new effects.
In many cases, the effectiveness of health food products - in both the areas of safety and scientific proof - leave much to be desired. Among the various raw materials used for health food products, some have been proven effective through clinical research, but there's no guarantee that a product using the same raw material will have the same effect on the human body.
Also in recent years, illegal products, which intentionally contain medical components with diuretic, cathartic and appetite suppressing actions to enhance effects, have entered the market.
One of the most recent concerns is the interaction between various health food products that have physiological functions and real medicines. As Japanese society rapidly ages, the usage of both health food products and medicines will increase, making their interaction an important issue.
The proper usage of health food products will be established only when consumers can choose products suitable for their dietary habits and lifestyles, correctly understand labels and advertising and make judgments about whether they contain ingredients their bodies need. That means consumers need to develop a more realistic attitude toward these products.

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We have been concentrating on bovine lactoferrin (bLF) which is known to have anti-microbial and immunoprotective effects. Lactoferrin is particularly abundant in colostrum, and is also present in tears, saliva and seminal and uterine secretions. Little is known regarding its influence on carcinogenesis. We have shown that when administered concurrently with a colon carcinogen, PhIP, bLF and its pepsin digested fragments (bLFH) inhibited the induction of liver CYP1A2 by PhIP and inhibited colon adenocarcinoma induction (blocking effects). When bLF, bLFH, and its fragment peptide derived from the N-terminal region of bLF, lactoferricin (bLFcin), were given during the post-initiation period, they also inhibited induction of colon adenocarcinoma development (suppressing effects). The mechanisms of action are wide-spectrum, including elevation of caspase-1 and IL-18 in the small intestine, enhanced cell killing activity of T and NK cells, apoptosis of initiated cells, anti-angiogenic and possibly anti-inflammatory effects. Thus, bLF possesses multi-functional potential to suppress carcinogenesis and has characteristics making it a good candidate for practical application in humans.

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Pilot trials and initial phase 2 dose-response trials of lactoferrin have suggested that lactoferrin administration may decrease the serum level of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Therefore, a double-blind randomized controlled trial was undertaken in treatment-naïve patients with chronic hepatitis C. Lactoferrin treatment was well tolerated and no serious toxicities were observed; however, there was no significant difference in virologic response rates between the lactoferrin group and the placebo group. Next, we examined whether or not lactoferrin was useful as an adjuvant to interferon/ribavirin therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C. A prospective randomized trial of interferon/ribavirin plus lactoferrin versus interferon/ribavirin plus placebo was undertaken in treatment-naïve patients with chronic hepatitis C. The sustained biochemical response in the lactoferrin group was superior to that in the placebo group; however, there were no significant differences in the primary and sustained virological remissions between the two groups. Although orally administered lactoferrin does not demonstrate any significant virological efficacy in patients with chronic hepatitis C, we are currently conducting a double-blind randomized controlled trial comparing lactoferrin with a placebo to clarify its usefulness as an adjuvant to pegylated interferon/ribavirin therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C.

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There is abundant evidence that lactoferrin (LF) influences various immune functions. Recent reports have shown enhancement of anti-microbial, anti-viral and anti-tumor immune activities after oral administration. We report here that orally administered bovine LF (bLF) increases numbers of peripheral NK cells and augments NK cell activity. When poly(I:C) i.p. injection induced NK cell trafficking into peritoneum, additional bLF oral administration increased NK cell accumulation. Oral administration of bLF immediately induced the production of IL-18 in the intestinal epithelium, and elevation of portal IL-18 levels. In IL-18 KO mice, oral bLF did not increase the numbers of NK cells, although NK cell cytotoxic activity and poly(I:C) induced trafficking activity were both enhanced . Furthermore, oral bLF administration augmented the expression of type-I IFNs in Peyer's patches and mesenteric lymph nodes. Collectively, these results indicate that orally administered bLF stimulates intestine-associated immune functions, including the production of IL-18 and type-I IFNs, and then raises NK cell activity.

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Bifidobacteria, the predominant microorganisms of human intestine, and lactoferrin, a major whey protein of human milk, are associated with the host defense system. Both bifidobacteria and lactoferrin (from bovine milk) are also being used in the food industry. Although lactoferrin is known for its antimicrobial activity, it does not inhibit the growth of bifidobacteria, but rather stimulates it in a strain-dependent fashion. Lactoferrin has been indicated as a natural candidate for the development of bifidus flora. Moreover, a lactoferrin-binding protein in bifidobacteria has been detected and proposed as a possible pathway of lactoferrin effect on bifidobacteria growth. However, the mechanism of lactoferrin association with bifidobacteria has not yet been resolved. In this minireview, studies relative to the effect of lactoferrin on the growth of bifidobacteria have been discussed.

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Various actions of lactoferrin (LF) have been reported, such as antimicrobial activity and immunomodulatory effects. Recent studies have demonstrated that its oral administration has a host-protective effect in various animals and humans and bovine LF can be isolated and purified on an industrial scale from cheese whey or skim milk. While LF was found to be readily denatured to an insoluble compound by heat treatment under neutral or alkaline conditions, it is highly thermostable at pH 4, and can be pasteurized or sterilized without any significant loss of physicochemical properties. Evaluation of the safety of bovine LF has confirmed that it is non-toxic when administered orally to rats for 13 weeks at dose levels of 200, 600 or 2,000 mg/kg/day. Purified LF is used as a food supplement and products such as infant formulae and yogurts supplemented with bovine LF are now being marketed in Japan and other countries. It is expected that such LF-enriched products will contribute to better health for all people.

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In 1973, I visited South America, Peru and Bolivia for the first time as a free lance photographer. Thereafter I have reported nature in the Andes and Amazon source region and information about the local races and ruins every year. In this series, I introduce the plants deeply associated with human beings since ancient times and their utility including type of cultivation and wild seeds. The Inca people discovered many plants, developed them, studied them, and discovered how to make the best use of them. The tradition has been passed on to the current people. I researched the power that Incan civilization had and the power that supported the people living in the Andes, through nature and human coexistence.

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Most proteins are tasteless and flavorless, but some proteins are known to elicit a sweet taste response on the human palate. Thaumatin, isolated from the fruit of Thaumatococcus daniellii Benth, a plant native to tropical West Africa, is nearly 100,000 times sweeter than sucrose on a molar basis. Lysozyme, which is known as a lytic enzyme and has been widely studied as a model protein, has also been recently demonstrated to be a sweet-tasting protein. To facilitate clarification of mechanisms of elicitation of sweetness, the genes encoding these sweet-tasting proteins were obtained and large scale production in microorganisms was performed. Herein recent advances in research on the sweet-tasting proteins, thaumatin and lysozyme, and biotechnological production are reviewed. Information on structure-sweetness relationships for these proteins should help not only to unravel mechanisms of interaction of sweet proteins with their receptors, but also to design more effective low caloric sweeteners.

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Although there is evidence that a kind of milk product called “So” existed and was a tribute to the Emperor’s family, records of its production have disappeared over the centuries. It might be interpreted that the reason for its disappearance is that farmers in ancient Japan concentrated on rice farming rather than dairy farming as a national policy.
Modernization of dairy farming in Japan started after the Meiji revolution under consultation with a number of American technologists. Mr. Edwin Dun, born in Ohio in 1848, was the most prominent technologist due to his direction of the development of dairy farming in Hokkaido Island, which has been a major dairy area in Japan since the modernization began in the late decades of the 19th century.
A text of cheese manufacturing was written in 1877 by Mr. Kiji Sakoda, who was a young technologist working with Mr. Dun in a Nanae experimental farm established by the new government. A summary of the text is presented in this article since the record is supposed to be the first text for modern cheese manufacturing in Japan, which has been collected in the Nanae Historical Archive and unveiled by the author today.
The development process in Japanese dairy farming after this modernization was different from those countries where dairy farming is popular. After the consumption of fluid milk was accepted by Japanese people (drinking of cow’s milk was customarily prohibited until the time), processing of sweetened condensed milk which had been invented by Mr. Gail Borden and was already imported to Japan, was developed instead of butter or cheese manufacturing. The reason why this product was chosen was due to social hygienic level and the poor acceptability of cheese and/or butter by Japanese people.
The first industrial butter manufacturing in Japan was started in 1925 and for cheese in 1932. Therefore, Japan is still an under developed country as far as dairy farming is concerned. It will be forecasted what Japanese dairy farming and dairy product consumption will be in the next century.

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