KAMPO MEDICINE 

Kampo medicine is the Japanese version of Chinese medicine imported to Japan in the 7th century. Medicinal plants and herbs, including mushrooms, have been used to create several hundred standardized formulations approved and paid for by the Japanese national health care system. Manufacturing and purity are monitored as carefully as for standard drugs. Most Japanese and 86% of Japanese physicians use Kampo drugs as part of their practice. In the United States these drugs are  used mainly by alternative medicine practitioners, but there are research projects in the United States (and Japan) assessing the value of different drugs. Palliation of cancer treatment side effects is a popular subject of research with promising results for diarrhea, constipation, nausea and other common drug side effects.

We visited a Kampo medicine store in Kyoto. As with most Japanese stores it was pristine and beautifully designed: a pleasure to make you very comfortable while buying expensive items. We spent almost an hour with one of the clerks, a well spoken, intelligent young woman who had a college degree in an unrelated field that she did not enjoy. But she loved this work. The Kampo drug company that owned the store trained her for several months about the different products which she understood and explained well. Most of her customers come to her because they are unsatisfied with their medical care. She tells them that lifestyle will determine their health; a diet of mainly or exclusively whole plant foods is critical together with exercise and some form of meditation. Her business of selling Kampo drugs is the secondary treatment. She's making some money for her store but providing wonderful medical advice. Wish we could replace some of our pharmacies with this business!

The formulations themselves are logical since we know that most herbs and mushrooms are very nutritious with a wide variety of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients. Recent NutritionFacts videos (link on right side of this page) have analyzed the powerful effects of amla (Indian gooseberry) which has been a mainstay of Ayurvedic medicine for millennia.