■What is Mibyo?
Have you ever felt that something isn't right with your health, mentally or physically, even though a health checkup or ningen dock (comprehensive health examination) can't find anything wrong? Maybe you have digestive issues or are easily tired. In Kampo medicine, this state is called mibyo, or presymptomatic disease. You are not yet sick but could become so without appropriate intervention.
Health checkups and ningen dock examinations are carried out from the Western medical perspective with the aim of identifying diseases at an early stage. However, to prevent disease development, detection at the presymptomatic (mibyo) stage is helpful, and this is where Kampo is advantageous.
■What is a Kampo dock?
A Kampo dock is a comprehensive health investigation carried out using Kampo-specific examination techniques (monshin; inquiry, zesshin; tongue examination, myakushin; pulse examination, and fukushin; abdominal examination) to determine an individual’s physical condition using the basic concepts of Kampo medicine-kyojitsu (deficiency-excess), kannetsu (cold-heat), and kiketsusui (qi-blood-fluid)- and thereby to detect mibyo before disease development. Kampo dock emphasizes disease prevention from the Kampo medical perspective.?
Although Kampo is based on ancient Chinese medicine, it is a form of traditional Japanese medicine that has been developed to suit the Japanese population. Until the start of the Meiji period in 1868, it was the main type of medicine practiced in Japan.
In Kampo examinations, the practitioner uses all five senses and establishes a treatment strategy based on experience and intuition. Because these five senses, experience, and intuition are difficult to describe in writing, an important emphasis has been placed on direct oral transmission from one person to another. This makes the diagnostic process difficult for non-specialists to understand and is a genuine example of "implicit knowledge."
On the other hand, around 80% of the crude drugs (herbal medicines) used to make the Kampo medications used in Japan are imported (mainly from China).
Kampo diagnosis has long been based on implicit knowledge. Because it requires specialist knowledge of Kampo, it is not widely adopted.
The depletion of natural resources and their increasingly high costs also contribute to the declining quality of crude drugs and issues with a stable supply.
Kampo medicine is rooted in coexistence with the natural world and provides a gentle means of intervening with the mind and body as a whole. It enables people of all generations to manage their health from the mibyo stage, thereby decreasing the prevalence of disease. This approach leads to extended healthy longevity and lower medical costs.
＊Organized by Kampo specialists with the aim of articulating the Kampo diagnostic process, which has been built up by the accumulation of wisdom over many years
＊ICT is an abbreviation for "information and communications technology"
Mibyo control system using safe,
high-quality Kampo ICT-based healthcare
Explanation in an Illustrative Video
Explanation in an Illustrative Video
Japanese Kampo supports the health of every generation
Oriental Medicine Research Center, Kitasato University COI Stream
About the COI Program
About the COI Program
In 2015, Oriental Medicine Research Center, Kitasato University was officially selected as a satellite Center of Innovation (COI) site in Hokkaido University's Innovative Food and Healthcare MASTER program, under the auspices of the COI Stream of the Radical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program run by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). The COI Stream concept is a vision-driven R&D program based on the shape society is expected to take over the next 10 years?, with the objective of building innovative platforms in Japan that can break down existing concepts and generate radical innovations. The Oriental Medicine Research Center is engaged in research under Vision 1, "Ensuring sustainability as an advanced country with an aging society," with the aim of achieving a society in which mibyo is detected and disease is prevented.
Research Overview
Kampo medicine, which is based on the concept of yakushoku dogen (medicine and food share the same origin), is ideally suited to health management at the mibyo stage, before disease becomes apparent, and is believed to function to prevent a wide range of illnesses. The utilization of scientifically verified Kampo medicine may improve health and extend healthy longevity, resulting in lower medical costs.
In this study, our aim is to develop a system to control mibyo from the standpoint of modern medicine, while using ICT based on large-scale clinical data to establish the concepts of Kampo dock and Kampo health application in order to propose a new healthcare system for the 21st century. We are also developing an evaluation system for crude drug quality and will launch new businesses to enable the manufacture of safe, high-quality crude drugs for use as Japanese medications for the treatment of mibyo.
R&D Themes that Will be Keys to Success
Message from the Director
What sort of image do the words "Kampo medicine" bring to mind? You might view the concept favorably because it uses natural ingredients and is gentle on the body, with a reputation for having few side effects and addressing problems that cannot be resolved by Western medicine. Some people, though, tend to avoid Kampo medicine as dubiously unscientific, bitter-tasting, requiring long-term administration, or simply not for them. Although both of these impressions have a kernel of truth, they are also both misunderstandings.
Our everyday diet is what keeps us healthy in mind and body, prevents disease, and is the source of energy. Drugs, on the other hand, are what restore health from illness. Kampo medications possess both properties. They both maintain health while preventing disease and restore health by treating illness when it occurs. Because these medications are made from natural ingredients, they can be taken continuously over long periods, with relatively minor negative health effects (although the possibility is non-zero), and can thus be used with confidence. Our efforts are directed at the use Kampo medications to the maximum advantage in order to resolve the state of mibyo, which lies somewhere between health and sickness. We will continue our research in the future, with the aim of building a system that enables mibyo to be detected in Kampo dock health examinations and treated with confidence by high-quality crude drugs and Kampo medications, helping everyone remain healthy for as long as possible.
Director-General,
Oriental Medicine Research Center, Kitasato University
Hiroshi Odaguchi
Implementation Framework
Kitasato University Satellite
Satellite Leader: Hiroshi Odaguchi
◆ Establishment of a Kampo
Mibyo Control System
◆ Establishment of a Crude Drug Quality Assurance System
◆ Elucidation of Kampo-Medicine-Based
Mibyo Control
Kitasato University Satellite
Satellite Leader: Hiroshi Odaguchi
◆ Establishment of a Kampo
Mibyo Control System
◆ Establishment of a Crude Drug
Quality Assurance System
◆ Elucidation of Kampo-Medicine-Based
Mibyo Control
Oriental Medicine Research Center, Kitasato University COI STREAM
Research Themes
Oriental Medicine Research Center, Kitasato University COI STREAM
Activities / Events
Picture-Book
What is Kampo?
"What is Kampo?" is a friendly publication in picture-book style that answers a number of questions about Kampo, which is a part of everyday life in Japan and yet people may not know very much about, as explained by a young?girl and her cat.
★Click on the images to see previous issues.
Picture-Book
What is Kampo?
"What is Kampo?" is a friendly publication in picture-book style that answers a number of questions about Kampo, which is a part of everyday life in Japan and yet people may not know very much about, as explained by a young?girl and her cat.
★Click on the images to see previous issues.
