Natural Medicine & Phytochemistry
Yoshihito OKADA, Ph.D., Professor
Masaki BABA, Ph.D., Lecturer
Prevention of “Life-Style Related Diseases (adult diseases)”, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, which are associated with a variety of vascular complications, is now our most urgent public health problem. We are especially interested in everyday diet and traditional folk medicines from around the world. There is a saying, “I-shoku-dogen”, which means medicines and foodstuff are equal and that eating correctly wards off illness.
“Mibyou” is the state of pre-symptomatic condition before onset of a disease, and this condition would be regulated by a skillful management to avoid onset of a disease.
Following this idea, we are surveying active constituents from natural resources. We have studied many kinds of spices, traditional daily foodstuffs, crude drugs and related Chinese medicines, for their tumor-suppressant properties and the prevention of complications in diabetes.
