Message from the president

Founded in Osaka, Japan in 1932, Sunstar has been striving to help people everywhere achieve better health and enhance their quality-of-life for almost 90 years. With this motto in mind, the Sunstar Foundation was established in 1977 by Mr. Hiroo Kaneda, the son of Sunstar's Founder and Honorary Chairman of the Sunstar Group, with the aim of helping people achieve this goal.

I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize the achievements of the Sunstar Foundation to date, in light of its unique and collaborative approach to working with teams of professionals.

In 1986, the Sunstar international symposium in Kobe, Japan was held, making the first important step in identifying the needs and opportunities in controlling periodontal diseases. In 1997, Sunstar successfully initiated the first publication of the "Sunstar-Chapel Hill Symposium on Periodontal Diseases and Human Health: New Directions in Periodontal Medicine", in the US. This followed the strong commitment of Mr. H. Kaneda to improve oral health around the world through the application of basic and clinical science.

In 2008, with the leadership of the Sunstar Foundation, the "Consensus Statement" by an international expert panel on systemic health, oral health and diabetes was successfully created in Karuizawa, Japan. During this meeting, extensive research findings were presented, demonstrating the interactions between diabetes and periodontal disease, which indicate that dietary and nutritional factors play both direct and indirect roles in systemic disorders like diabetes and oral disease.

Since then, the Sunstar Foundation has organized twenty JSDEI Seminars (Joslin Sunstar Diabetes Educational Initiatives) worldwide. Participants have so far included more than 7,000 key opinion leaders and experts, such as periodontists, dentists, dental hygienists, diabetologists, endocrinologists, medical doctors, dieticians and nutritionists as well as post-graduate students from around the world. Those seminars aim to gather experts from different fields to discuss how to manage diabetes and periodontal disease from a multidisciplinary approach. During these seminars, we have shared powerful discoveries such as the fact that periodontal disease is the 6th complication of diabetes, and, therefore, treating it can reduce Hemoglobin A1C by 0.4%.

Nowadays, oral health is recognized as an essential component of general health and well-being. I am honored to become president of the Sunstar Foundation and continue to support and promote the health of people around the world. By following the same genuine approach initiated by Mr. Hiroo Kaneda, I will do my best to expand the mission of the Foundation to contribute to our society.