Food for Specified Health Uses(FOSHU)regulatory system was established in 1991 in Japan, and since 2001 FOSHU has been categorized one of the Food with Health Claims(FHC)under the new system. The numbers of currently approved FOSHU are 806 items(7^th, Nov.2008). They were analyzed in terms of the current status and the transition during the recent decade from the view point of the labels of health claims and functional components. Thereafter, a short history on a couple of FOSHU regulatory system is introduced.

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Characteristics of dietary fiber in persimmon leaves were investigated by using analytochemical and histochemical techniques. The staining examination with the various labeled lectins for fresh persimmon leaves showed high affinity for the specific sugar residues or sugar chains in hemicellulose, pectic substance and glycoprotein constituting the cell wall of leaves. The sugar composition analysis and histochemical observation showed that the insoluble hemicellulose fraction may be hetero-polysaccharide consisted of arabinose as main sugar chain, and xylose and galactose as side chain. The results also revealed that the soluble hemicellulose fraction may be categorized to acidic hetro-polysaccharide composed of galacturonan as main sugar chain and mannose and arabinose as side chain. The two fractions of soluble acidic polysaccharide with different uronic acid contents were found to belong to pectic substances. The present results may indicate that some significant informations were presented on the properties of hemicellulose and pectic substance referring to matrix structure of cell wall in persimmon leaves.

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This study was performed to examine the effects of several kinds of dietary fiber (DF) with different physical properties on blood glucose and serum uric acid concentrations in streptozotocin (STZ)-inducediabetic rats fed a diet with dietary RNA . Male Wistar rats(5 weeks old)were divided into four groups;one half of the groups were rendered diabetic by an intraperitoneal injection of STZ(70 mg/kg body weight), and the diabetic and nondiabetic rats were fed a diet with or without 3% (w/w) yeast RNA. The rats in each experimental group were fed a diet with or without 5%(w/w)DF(cellulose, chitin, chitosan or inulin)for five days. Chitosan and inulin were found to suppress the elevation of blood glucose in diabetic rats. This phenomenon was not observed in the cellulose and chitin groups. DF test groups showed lower serum uric acid concentrations as compared to the fiber-free diabetic group. Lastly, we observed that responses of blood glucose and serum uric acid concentrations in STZ-induced diabetic rats fed dietary RNA vary with the type of DF .

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