Kanagawa Prefecture Seminar on Healthcare New Frontier in Japan

ME-BYO: Building a Better Future through Behavior Change

Topic for the year 2019 ME-BYO Technology and Innovation Promotion from Kanagawa Prefecture:

Abstract

“Tackling Fatigue - The key to Disease prevention, ‘Replenishing vigor’”

Dr. Hideki Katano, Vice-President, Venex Co., Ltd.

There are three warning signs the body experience that appear before you get disease onset. Pain, fever, fatigue. Among them, fatigue is not recognized as a warning sign of disease. However the easy intake of energy drinks or supplements that mask fatigue in the short term can have serious consequences.
Fatigue is one of the most common warning signs of disease in the world. The number of people suffering from fatigue is increasing, not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. In addition, I think that the proliferation of digital society in recent years is contributing to this increase.
The pace of digital progress does not match the pace of human adaptation and is likely to be excessive, but people are afraid to fall behind. This can sometimes lead to increased overtime work, followed by burnout, which can be fatal in the worst case. Furthermore, the aging of society in the future has the potential to accelerate this tragedy whereby we can’t keep up with the pace.
In view of this, we have developed a technological method to aid fatigue recovery. A lack of rest is closely related to fatigue. In recent years, the consensus has been that fatigue can be caused by a lack of rest. So we focused our research on this issue. Our results identified that a decrease in parasympathetic activity was a contributing factor. We succeeded in developing the technology to enhance this. The effects of the parasympathetic nervous system have various benefits to our biological function such as the immune system, the metabolic system, and the nervous system. Our technology is implemented in clothes. It is non-invasive, as well as being safest and the easiest way to aid recovery. Our technology can accelerate recovery just by wearing it.
So far, we have conducted various studies with researchers in Japan, the United States, and Germany, and accumulated medical evidence. Products using our technology are already on the market. Our products are currently being sold in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, China, Korea, Taiwan, and the market for our products is expanding further.