Dr. Ben Kim's blog

If there's a truly must-see film for all parents and children who are about 10 and older, this is it. I stumbled upon "Trust," directed by David Schwimmer, at our library the other day and barely blinked through this story of a good family that is devastated by their 14-year old daughter falling prey to an online pedophile.

Please have a look at the trailer here: Read more

On January 12, 2007, a 28-year old Californian wife and mother of three children died from drinking too much water. Her body was found in her home shortly after she took part in a water-drinking contest that was sponsored by a local radio show. Entitled "Hold Your Wee For A Wii," the contest promoters promised a free Wii video game machine to the contestant who drank the most water without urinating. Read more

A story at cbc.ca highlights the importance of being cautious in giving acetaminophen to youngsters, as overdosing is "the most common identifiable cause of acute liver failure in children," reports researcher Dr. Rod Lim of the Children's Hospital in London. Read more

A study that was published in a 2006 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology suggests that exposure to loud noises over many years can increase your risk of developing a non-cancerous tumour called acoustic neuroma, which can cause hearing loss. Of important note is that the study found that this risk holds true of any loud noise, not just work-related noise. Read more

Just stumbled upon the hauntingly lovely video that Ben Breedlove posted to YouTube about a week before he passed on from a chronic heart condition. His family learned of the video from friends who discovered it the day that he left. Read more

Addendum on August 18, 2013: Please note that there is more recent data on acrylamide content in common foods - you can view some of this data here: What About Acrylamide In Coffee? Read more

In a previous article on acrylamide, I wrote that potato chips and French fries are best avoided for their high acrylamide content. What follows are answers to a few questions on acrylamide that were submitted by readers:

What other foods are high in acrylamide and should be avoided? - Tyler G. Read more

For me, the most fascinating segment of Morgan Spurlock's documentary on McDonalds, called Super Size Me, involved the man who has become famous for eating almost nothing but Big Macs since 1972. Don Gorske is the Guinness world record holder for number of Big Macs eaten, having passed 19,800 Big Macs as of June, 2004. Read more

Originally published in April 2010

In my book, any smoothie that's worth writing about starts with ripe bananas. You can use room temperature or frozen banana slices - both impart natural creaminess like no other fruit can.

Before we get started, here's a quick look at how I like to store bananas: Read more

A study published in the American journal Cancer found that people who frequently had some types of dental X-rays in the past had an increased risk of a meningioma, the most common type of brain tumor.

It should be noted that their data was from a time when radiation doses with typical X-rays were higher than they are today, given that many dentists are moving from traditional film to digital images. Read more