Red koji has been used for a variety of fermentation food such as sake from old in China and South Korea, etc. and it has also been used from a Ryukyu dynasty for Tufuyo, a traditional bean curd food preparation in Okinawa in Japan, and “Red koji color (Monascus color)” extracted from Red koji is widespread as natural colorant.
Recently, lovastatin (Monacolin K) that has the hypocholesterolemic activity is discovered from a part of Red koji, though statins are prescription medicines used now for about 30 million people all over the world to decrease LDL-cholesterol that is the risk factor that causes atherosclerosis, and moreover the Red koji that contains this natural statin becomes available for the processed food such as dietary supplement, and it is expected a beneficial use in the primary care of the lifestyle disease by the eating habits improvement. In this paper, we would like to clarify the history as the food of Red koji, the active ingredients as the functional food material and the mechanism, the effectiveness and safety, including the clinical trial results such as improvement of lipid metabolism, and also introduce the probability as the beneficial material for complementary and alternative medicine as well as for dietary supplement in health conditioning and the prevention of the lifestyle disease.

Japan has been facing a serious shortfall of child and adolescent psychiatric workforce relative to increasing service needs. Likely because of a combination of limited workforce supply and limited trust or perception of effectiveness, mental health services are under-utilized by the educational and child welfare systems. Child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) has not been a formally established specialty in Japan. The lack of basic structure in the specialty most likely contributes to a lack of training facilities, limited exposure to and interest in the specialty, and hence an inadequate workforce. To date, there exists no standardized training program for CAP in Japan and each training hospital determines its own teaching curriculum and training content. Clinical experience in CAP varies greatly among hospitals. To solve current problems in child and adolescent psychiatry in Japan, we advocate for the development and establishment of a more standardized child and adolescent psychiatry training system that is akin to what exists in the US and that teaches and evaluates according to specific competencies. Through standardizing care and education and ultimately improving workforce, the quality of mental health services can be raised. The tragic and costly consequences of unidentified and untreated mental illness in youth can be avoided by taking timely evidence based actions in partnership with others.
Adolescent ; Adolescent Psychiatry* ; Adolescent* ; Child Welfare ; Child* ; Curriculum ; Education ; Humans ; Japan* ; Mental Health Services

Japan has been facing a serious shortfall of child and adolescent psychiatric workforce relative to increasing service needs. Likely because of a combination of limited workforce supply and limited trust or perception of effectiveness, mental health services are under-utilized by the educational and child welfare systems. Child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) has not been a formally established specialty in Japan. The lack of basic structure in the specialty most likely contributes to a lack of training facilities, limited exposure to and interest in the specialty, and hence an inadequate workforce. To date, there exists no standardized training program for CAP in Japan and each training hospital determines its own teaching curriculum and training content. Clinical experience in CAP varies greatly among hospitals. To solve current problems in child and adolescent psychiatry in Japan, we advocate for the development and establishment of a more standardized child and adolescent psychiatry training system that is akin to what exists in the US and that teaches and evaluates according to specific competencies. Through standardizing care and education and ultimately improving workforce, the quality of mental health services can be raised. The tragic and costly consequences of unidentified and untreated mental illness in youth can be avoided by taking timely evidence based actions in partnership with others.
Adolescent ; Adolescent Psychiatry* ; Adolescent* ; Child Welfare ; Child* ; Curriculum ; Education ; Humans ; Japan* ; Mental Health Services

Purpose: This study was performed to determine the prognostic value of lymphocyte-to-CRP ratio after curative resection for hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: Between July 2010 and October 2021, 173 consecutive patients (144 male, 29 female) who underwent surgical resection for pathologically confirmed hepatocellular carcinoma were included in this retrospective study. Cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between clinicopathological characteristics and recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). A P-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The patients (mean age, 71 years) were stratified into high (≥9,500, n = 108) and low (<9,500, n = 65) lymphocyteto-CRP ratio groups. The low lymphocyte-to-CRP ratio group had significantly worse RFS and OS. Low lymphocyte-toCRP ratio (hazard ratio [HR], 1.865; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.176–2.960; P = 0.008), multiple tumors (HR, 3.333; 95% CI, 2.042–5.343; P < 0.001), and microvascular invasion (HR, 1.934; 95% CI, 1.178–3.184; P = 0.009) were independently associated with RFS, whereas low albumin-to-globulin ratio (HR, 2.270; 95% CI, 1.074–4.868; P = 0.032), α-FP of ≥25 ng/mL (HR, 2.187; 95% CI, 1.115–4.259; P = 0.023), and poor tumor differentiation (HR, 2.781; 95% CI, 1.041–6.692; P = 0.042) were independently associated with OS. Lymphocyte-to-CRP ratio had a higher area under the curve (0.635) than other inflammation-based markers (0.51–0.63). Conclusion Lymphocyte-to-CRP ratio is superior to other inflammation-based markers as a predictor of RFS in patients with surgically resected hepatocellular carcinoma.