Just For Laughs (10)

*taken from HERE

Fish Roe Fried Rice

Ingredients:

1. 3 'sacks' of fish roe
2. 200gm of french beans (washed and diced)
3. 3 eggs (beaten)
4. 3 cups of cooked rice
5. Sea-salt
6. Sunflower oil

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1. Cook the fish roe. Click on RECIPE on how to cook the fish roe.

2. Heat a wok on medium high heat.

3. Drizzle some sunflower oil.

4. Add the beaten eggs and fry until cooked. Break up the eggs.

5. Add the french beans and fry until cooked.

6. Add the rice and fish roe.

7. Add sea-salt to taste.

8. Stir fry until everything is mixed thoroughly.

9. Scoop up onto serving dish and serve hot.

Bon appétit!

Did You Know....

... That recurring depression can shrink the size of your hippocampus?

*The hippocampus in your brain is involved in forming emotions and memory. Our memory is not only about remembering events, people, or even passwords; it developes and maintains who we are. The hippocampus is also directly affected by estrogen.

*click on Brain Tour

So if your sense of self is altered, there is some loss to the emotional and behavioral function.

To find out more, click on Depression Affects Brain Structure.

Click on Depression Makes Your Brain Smaller.

Stir-Fried Siew Yuk with Potatoes

Ingredients:

1. 1kg of cooked siew yuk (click on LINK on how to cook siew yuk - which is basically roasted pork belly)
2. 10 potatoes (washed, skin removed and cut into chunks)
3. Sea-salt
4. Sunflower oil

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1. Heat a wok on high heat.

2. Drizzle some sunflower oil (not too much as the siew yuk is oily).

3. Add the potatoes and then turn the heat down to medium. Close the lid and allow the potatoes to cook until softened.

4. Add the cooked siew yuk and stir fry to mix everything up.

5. Season to taste with some sea-salt.

6. Scoop up onto serving dish.

7. Serve hot with rice or bread.

Bon appétit!

The ABCs - N is for Nocebo

*The term 'nocebo'was coined in 1961 by Walter Kennedy. 'Nocebo' means 'I shall harm'. It is the opposite of 'placebo'. The term 'placebo' means 'I shall please'.

*taken from HERE

In the medical sense, a 'nocebo reaction' is where a **drug-trial subject's symptoms are made worse by the administration of a placebo. It is entirely due to the subject's pessimistic belief and expectation that the drug that was given would produce harmful, injurious, unpleasant or undesirable consequences.

**taken from HERE

***A 'placebo reaction' or 'placebo effect' on the other hand is a stimulated medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or medical condition.

***taken from HERE

It is interesting to note that despite no 'real' drugs were used, patients do manifest in unpleasant, injurious, undesirable biochemical, physiological, behavioral, emotional and cognitive consequences. The 'nocebo effect' was identified during pharmaceutical trials. ****Subjects were observed to exhibit undesirable effects even though they were not given any medication except a placebo!

****taken from HERE

*****An interesting case to note is "Mr. A" who suffered from depression. His doctor Roy Reeves reported this case in 2007. He swallowed a whole bottle of pills and then regretted his decision on suicide. He rushed to the ER, collapsed at the reception, his BP plunged, and hyperventilated. All blood tests could show no trace of drugs in his system.

Finally, four hours later, another doctor informed Roy Reeves that 'Mr. A' had been in the placebo arms of a drug trial and he had overdosed on SUGAR TABLETS! 'Mr.A' soon recovered upon hearing the 'good news'.

*****taken from HERE

Bottom line is, our mind is a powerful tool/weapon indeed!

Click on Induced Illness to read more on nocebo effect.

Click on Media reports may trigger symptoms of a disease.

Click on The Thought That Could Kill You.

Just for Laughs (9)

*picture taken from HERE

Yoghurt with Bananas

Ingredients:

1. 3 tablespoons of organic/natural Greek yoghurt
2. 1 medium sized banana (cut into chunks)

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1. Mix together and enjoy!

Epi-Pens

First, the good news.

There were still a handful of Epi-Pens at the Sime Darby Medical Centre Subang Jaya (some of us still call it SJMC) on Wednesday. The expiry date is June 2016.

Here's the bad news.

They now cost RM400 each.

If you're in need of an Epi-Pen, I suggest you get a prescription and head there ASAP. These needles run out pretty fast.

Home-Made Powder

Ingredients:

1. 10gm of corn flour
2. 10 gm of baking soda

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1. Mix both ingredients and pour into a bottle or container.

2. Use when needed.

The ABCs - M is for Microbiome

Whether you like it or not, we humans are home to tens of trillions of microbes.

Microbiota

A microbiota is *"the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space".

*taken from HERE

**Our human body contains over ten times more microbial cells than human cells! 

**taken from HERE

The microbes are made up of bacteria, fungi and protozoa.

The picture below shows the diversity of the microbes that live in and on us!

*picture taken from HERE

Their Function in Our Human Body

The microbes live in our gut, mouth, skin, and other mucosal surfaces of our bodies. Today, scientists have discovered that these microbes benefit us by digesting food, preventing disease-causing-pathogens from invading our body, synthesizing essential nutrients and vitamins and also responsible for sending certain signals to the brain!

Beneficial & Non-Beneficial Foods

Optimizing the gut flora by ingesting fermented food is the best choice one can make. Lassi, kefir, sauerkraut. natto, kimchi, yoghurt and miso are superb fermented foods to have.

Probiotics is another good source to optimizing the gut flora.

Antibiotics, on the other hand will destroy the microbes in our gut. It will not only destroy the bad guys, the good guys will be eradicated too. Consumption of animals that are fed with antibiotics are also known to to destroy the gut flora.

Sugar, as well as processed food are also detrimental to the gut flora. High consumption of sugar can alter the atmosphere of the microbiome by causing a high amount of yeast/fungal.

Human Microbiome Project

The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was a project by the United States National Institutes of Health. Their goal was to identify and characterise the microorganisms which are found in healthy and diseased bodies.

It is still a very little understood subject.

But there have been some interesting discoveries.

• Microbes contribute more genes responsible for human survival than human's own genes. It is estimated that bacterial protein-coding genes are 360 times more abundant than human genes.
• Microbial metabolic activities, such as the digestion of fast are not always provided by the same bacterial species. 
• Components of the human micro biome changes over time, affected by the patient's diseased state and medication. However, the micro biome eventually returns to a state of equilibrium. The composition of the bacterial types has changed though. ***

***taken from HERE

Click HERE to read more about our microbes.

Also click on The Human Microbiome for more information.

Do take the time to watch the YouTube video about our microbiome.

Gluten-Free Apple Crumble

Ingredients:

1. 6 Red Delicious apples (skin removed, cored and sliced into thin wedges)
2. 1 1/2 cups of gluten-free flour (I used brown rice flour)
3. 1 cup of finely chopped cashew nuts
4. 6 tablespoons of butter (softened at room temperature)

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1. Place the apple wedges at the bottom of mini single aluminum muffin tins.

2. Then sprinkle the finely chopped cashew nuts on top of the apple wedges.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C.

4. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and butter. Mix them until they resemble fine bread crumbs.

5. Spread the crumble all over the apple and cashews.

6. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

7. Serve warm. (You can freeze the extras and reheat them in the oven just before you eat.)

Bon appétit!