Around 350 medical doctors from around the world are expected to attend this year's International AHCC (Active Hexose Correlated Compound) and GCP (Genistein Combined Polysaccharide) Research Associations Symposium in July in Sapporo, Japan.
The AHCC Research Association and the GCP Research Association were established in the US to promote clinical research of the functional foods and to educate healthcare professionals and scientists of their benefits. The focus of the Symposium is to discuss new AHCC and GCP research and developments over the past year.
Dr Gerald Sonnenfeld from the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, giving the keynote speech, will talk about space flight, the immune system and resistance to infection. His latest study entitled, "Active Hexose Correlated Compound Enhances Resistance to Klebsiella pneumoniae Infection in Mice in the Hindlimb-Unloading Model of Space Flight Conditions," published in the Journal of Applied Physiology will be presented at the Symposium.
"This is the first year a doctor from the US will be giving the keynote presentation at the Symposium," said Dr Fred Pescatore, of the Centers For Integrative and Complementary Medicine and medical director for the US AHCC Research Association. "Dr Sonnenfeld's study with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute is promising and will garner immense attention in the industry as well as at the Symposium."
Other presenters from the US include Dr Fred Pescatore, Dr Thomas Walshe from Harvard Medical School and Faulkner Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts and Dr Zhinan Yin from Yale University. Last year, doctors from eight different countries attended, including China, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Thailand, Mexico and the United States.
AHCC is derived from a highly specialized manufacturing process developed in the mid-1980s that relies on the hybridization of several species of mushrooms cultivated in Japan. According to industry analysts in Japan, over 700 hospitals and medical clinics recommend AHCC to patients in that country as part of an immune support regimen.
GCP is produced by a special soybean fermentation technique involving isoflavone extracts and medicinal mushrooms. It contains rich levels of isoflavone aglycones, especially Genistein, as well as polysaccharides from Basidiomycetes mushrooms. Isoflavone glycosides are transformed into aglycones using b-glucosidase-producing basidiomycetes via an innovative Japanese technology.