Although introduced to Japan as a health food, Huaier granule emerged with abundant evidence, both from fundamental and clinical researches, and is being prescribed clinically in China, since it was originally developed as a new pharmaceutical. Huaier granule has a wide range of application and this review narrow down to the effects of it to hepatocellular carcinoma, the most reported one.

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Japanese version of the Constitution in Chinese Medicine Questionnaire (CCMQ-J) in Chinese consists of 60 items for 9 sub-scales called Gentleness, Qi-deficiency, Yang-deficiency, Yin-deficiency, Phlegm-wetness, Wet-heat, Blood-stasis, Qi-depression, and Special diathesis. Each question is answered by choosing one form 5 grades of a Likert scale where the grades from 1 to 5 corresponding to Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often and Always, respectively. In the present study, we examined the relationship of scores based on 597 respondents to 60 items. We tentatively classified 60 items into 12 groups by utilizing the Ward’s hierarchical clustering method and discussed similarity of items and 9 body conditions. Body Mass Index (BMI) and age can be explained by the score of 60 items by partial least square model. Significantly high correlation coefficients between real and estimated values were obtained for BMI (0.81 for male and 0.82 for female) and age (0.82 for male and 0.83 for female). Those results indicate that the answers to the 60 items can reflect aging and BMI properties and CCMQ-J can be used to assess the situation of health for evaluating the actual aging conditions in human.

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Objectives: To study the effect of astaxanthin contained drink to skin condition Method: The study was conducted to the Japanese females between age over thirty to less than fifty , who had weakening of skin (including aging, sag and dry skin) and skin dullness. In order to conduct the objective evaluation, the comparison between the groups by the double-blind test was taken. Twenty of subjects were randomly allocated to the intake group of astaxanthin contained drink (astaxanthin 3mg contained) and the placebo group. After eight weeks intake of the drink, each group was evaluated with skin water contents, transepidermal water loss, skin elasticity, VISIA and skin texture etc. Result: In between the groups, the intake group of astaxanthin contained drink was greatly excellent in the categories of skin moisture, transepidermal water loss, skin elasticity , erythema dose and skin texture. Conclusion: Astaxanthin has protecting effect of skin barrier and is considered to increase the water retention capability to reduce skin dryness. Astaxanthin is also effective to erythema dose, skin elasticity and skin texture.　As no adverse events resulting from the test drink was seen, such food containing astaxanthin is considered as a safe and useful health functional food material to skin.

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Objectives: We studied the effects of the apple polyphenol (AP) with added alcohol on the weight of accumulated fat and dyslipidemia in obese (fa/fa) Zucker rats. Methods: The Zucker fatty rats of 5weeks male were fed for 4 weeks with the experimental diets used high cholesterol diet with 10% alcohol. The fatty rats were divided Control group and AP group. The control group without apple polyphenol, AP group was that there apple polyphenol. It was measured the posterior abdominal wall fat and testicle peripheral fat weight, the concentrations of serum and liver lipids. Results: The posterior abdominal wall fat weight indicated a tendency to decrease in the AP group compared to the Control group. The concentrations of serum total cholesterol and triglyceride decreased in the AP group compared to the Control group. There was no different between each group with respect to the concentration of cholesterol and triglyceride in the liver. The alanine aminotransferase decreased in the AP group compared to the Control group. Conclusion: These results suggested that the alcohol diets containing the apple polyphenol appear to effectively decrease the concentration of serum lipids and the alanine aminotransferase. The apple polyphenol were expected to prevent dyslipidemia and fatty liver.

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