Dr. Ben Kim's blog

I recently received a letter from a reader that asked for my opinion on a stretching technique called Active Isolated Stretching (AIS).

AIS was named and developed by a man named Aaron Mattes, who has had a long history of using this stretching technique on his clients and teaching it to thousands of health practitioners over many years. Read more

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning not to give over-the-counter cold and cough medicines to children 2 years of age or under without consulting with one's doctor.

This warning is the result of research that was conducted in response to the deaths of three infants in 2005; all of them were found to have dangerous levels of pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant, in their systems. Read more

One evening back in May of 2000, a documentary on PBS caught my attention. It was about the many thousands of young Korean women who were essentially forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II.

The interviews with some of these Korean women - now grandmothers living in Korea, Japan, and China - were difficult to watch because of how sad their stories were, but I found myself barely able to move for the entire film. Read more

I recently heard about a program on the Animal Planet channel that featured the 50 most amazing facts about animals that few people know about.

I thought that some of our readers would find some of the facts that I learned from this program to be as fascinating as I do. What follows is a summary of the facts that surprised me the most. Read more

This scrumptious dessert recipe calls for two healthy and protein-dense plant foods: almonds and sesame seeds. Sesame seeds are also an excellent source of calcium.

This recipe also requires the use of a Champion juicer, which comes with a flat plate that allows you to make all-natural ice cream out of bananas, all-natural nut butters, and desserts like almond sesame squares. Read more

Polyvinyl chloride, also known as PVC or vinyl, is arguably one of the most toxic types of plastic in our lives.

One reason why PVC is so toxic is that it is often mixed with softening chemicals called plasticizers, the most well known variety being phalates.

Exposure to PVC and the plasticizers that often come with it have been strongly associated with an increased risk of developing the following conditions: Read more

During the second half of my wife's first pregnancy, our mothers and aunts told us that we were definitely going to have a baby boy.

How did they know with such certainty?

Because Margaret gained the bulk of her pregnancy weight at the front of her abdomen.

According to widely accepted folklore, if weight gain during pregnancy occurs mainly at the front of the abdomen, one can expect a baby boy. If weight gain occurs more evenly throughout a woman's body and face, it's most likely a girl. Read more

According to Dr. James Vaupel of the Laboratory of Survival and Longevity in Rostock, Germany, a person's life span has very little to do with genetics.

Dr. Vaupel explains that while certain physical traits like height are determined in large part by one's genetics, "only 3 percent of how long you will live compared to the average person can be explained by how long your parents lived." Read more

If you enjoy spinach turnovers but are wary of eating flaky pastries on a regular basis, you may grow very fond of this recipe for truly healthy spinach turnovers. In order to keep it as simple as possible, it calls for frozen spinach, which actually has an excellent nutrient profile. Read more

A study published in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that taking heartburn drugs like Nexium, Prilosec, or Prevacid for one year or longer can significantly increase the risk of experiencing a hip fracture in people over 50 years of age.

According to IMS Health, a corporation that tracks drug sales all over the world, Nexium is one of the most popular drugs in the world, second only to the cholesterol drug Lipitor. Sales of Nexium totaled $4.6 billion in 2005. Read more