Panax Ginseng and Health

Ginseng refers to species within Panax, a genus of 11 species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, in the family Araliaceae. They grow in the Northern Hemisphere especially in eastern Asia (Jilin Province of China, Korea, and eastern Siberia), also found in Wincousin, USA., typically in cooler climates.
Panax Ginseng is claimed to be a precious medicinal plant. It is widely used in Chinese Medicine as a high value medicine. It can increase physical and mental wellness, improve the concentration during work especially night work, boost metabolism, help regulate body functions and indirectly strengthen other functions in the body to promote general health of body.
Ginseng has been used for long time to improve the overall health of human being. It is found in the first Chinese book of herbs, the Ben Chao Jing (The Classic of Herbs), written by the famous Emperor Shen Nung. In this book, he suggested ginseng can help in making our mind more fresh and increasing wisdom. Panax Ginseng is widely used as a tonic to improve our whole body. It is also believed to cure lethargy, arthritis, impotence, and other difficult disease.
Polysaccharides found in ginseng are strong immune system modulators, thus help our to build a strong resistant to disease. If we look at the botanical name of ginseng, Panax, it actually means “all healing” in Greek.
Ginseng also is considered an adaptogen that can increases the body's resistance to stress. Adaptogens are substances that assist the body to restore health and without side effects even if the recommended dose is widely exceeded. A recent study at the University of Hong Kong has identified Ginseng to have anti-inflammatory effects.
Ginseng is widely used to lower cholesterol, increase energy and endurance, reduce fatique and effects of stress and prevent infections.
Ginseng is one of the most effective anti-aging supplements. It can alleviate some major effects of aging, such as degeneration of the blood system.

Big Pineapple in Miri, Sarawak

This is the biggest pineapple I have even seen, in the market (tamu) of Miri, Sarawak. This pineapple is called "Nenas Paun",both together weight about 15kg. It is much bigger than the famus Sarawak Pineapple which is called "Nenas Sawit Madu".

Know more about Leeches

Know more about Leeches
Leeches are commonly known as a kind of animals that suck blood, and there is fresh water, terrestrial and marine leeches. Scientifically it is categorized as annelids, which is segmented worms comprising the subclass Hirudinea. It is closely related to earthworms, and it is hermaphrodites that have both male and female reproductive organs.
Bodies of all leeches are divided into the same number of segments, with 34 altogether. They have powerful clinging sucker at each end. The mouth is in the anterior sucker and the anus is on the dorsal surface that is just in front of the rear sucker. The mouth of leech has 3 jaws, so the bite by the leeches will show a Y-shape mark.
When leeches bite and feeding with blood, there is a kind of secretion from the body of leech called hirudin will prevent the blood from clotting. Hirudin is a substance that gives valuable usage in medicine. It breathes through the skin by exchange of oxygen from the dissolved gases in the water. It tends to move to the surface when the oxygen content in the water is low.
The head and body surface of leech has the sensory organ to detect change in light intensity, vibration and temperature. It also has the chemical receptors on the head to detect smell. It could have one or more pairs of eyes.
Even though leeches have both male and female sex organs, they still need to mate for reproduction purpose. This involves intertwining of bodies where each deposits sperm in the others’ clitellar area. The clitellum secretes a tough gelatinous cocoon that contains nutrients, and this is where the eggs are deposited.
Most leeches are sanguivorous, they suck the blood of the host as food. They can ingest the amount of blood that is several times of their body weight. They can feed on the blood of mammals, frogs, fish and other parasitize. When they bite the host, their saliva contains anti-coagulant will keep the blood continue flowing. The wound will continue bleeding for a few hours even after the leeches detached. The best way to take out the leech when it bites us is by applying some salt or vinegar on to it, this will make it detach immediately. Some people use tobacco leaves to achieve the same purpose.
Leech has got a lot of medical usage be it in pharmaceutical or traditional medicine. Since its population is getting lesser due to the use of insecticide and herbicide, some people start to rear leech to supply to the factories. They are so many benefits that we can get from it and more study is needed to find out how it can help us to improve our health.

The Usage of Leeches

Leeches can be used in many applications especially for medical and cosmetic purpose. Traditional use of leeches is by letting the leech to suck blood of the patient’s body to relief symptoms like headache and join pain. Leech oil is known to the local community for enhancing the sex capability of man. In India, it is used for preventing hair loss. Chinese medicine use leech as and ingredient for various treatments. Modern medicine uses the ingredient extracted from leech to cure blood related diseases.
Leeches have been used for medical purposes since over 2000 years ago. One example is using leeches to suck out the blood in the body to achieve the healing purpose. Today there is a real clinical application in this method; they are of great value to plastic surgeons when venous congestion of skin and muscle flaps is a problem. The leech can suck the blood at the joint where blood is clogged and make it flow again. Leeches today are used in plastic and reconstructive surgery worldwide. There is also successful ongoing research into relieving symptoms of osteoarthritis by using leech.
One bigger progress in using leeches in medical field is that they have been approved in America for use in therapy purposes. Live leech are being distributed to various location in the country and also worldwide for use. After sucking the blood, leeches are treated in the same way as other blood treatment procedure that they only can be used on the same patient. This is mainly to prevent the spreading of disease that carried by blood.
Other usage of leeches also includes treatment of black eyes. Hirudin, the anti-coagulant from leech can be used in the treatment of inflammation of the middle ear. It is also being developed for experimental use as a systemic anticoagulant, and may prove useful in invitro blood sampling. By extracting the anti-clotting serum from the leech researchers are isolating new pharmaceutical compounds for eventual treatment of heart diseases.
From the history, leech was indispensable in 19th Century medicine for bloodletting, a practice believed to be a cure for anything from headaches to gout. The medicinal leech is getting more popular in modern medicine thanks to the work of Dr. Roy Sawyer, an American scientist who established the world's first leech farm.
Thousands of patients owe the successful reattachment of body parts to technological advances in plastic and reconstructive surgery; at least some of these operations might have failed if leeches had not been reintroduced into the operating room. The key to success is from what contain in the leech bite, which punctures a wound that bleeds literally for hours. The leech's saliva contains substances that anaesthetize the wound area, dilate the blood vessels to increase blood flow, at the same time prevent the blood from clotting. Usually the surgeon can get blood to flow in the reattached arteries but not veins. With the venous circulation severely compromised, the blood going to the reattached finger becomes congested; the reattached portion turns blue and lifeless and is at serious risk of being lost. At this time leeches start to play their major role in letting go of the clotting blood.Leech farming is an industry that is getting more popular as more leech usage has been established. One reason is also due to the number of leeches getting lesser in the wild, after the heavy usage of insecticide and pesticide. More researches are on going in discovering the uses of leech that can help us to cure the blood related problem such as heart diseases and also high cholesterol in our body. The role of leech will change from a blood sucking creature that is feared by many people to a great helper in our health.