The Dose

Mask mandates have been lifted in several provinces, though some hospitals and long term care homes are still insisting on masks. But Omicron and subvariants have not disappeared. So this week we’re asking: What should I do when the mask mandates are lifted? Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, helps us navigate. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 lis...

British Columbia has become the first jurisdiction in Canada to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of illicit drugs like opioids, cocaine and crystal meth. This move is part of a big idea called harm reduction. So how much could drug decriminalization help with harm reduction? Dr. Hakique Virani, an addiction medicine and public health physician in Edmonton, explains. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

There are plenty of ads for supplements that supposedly boost our memory. If you’re worried about memory loss, you might be tempted to give them a try. But how well do they work? Dr. Sandra Black, cognitive neurologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, has the answer, as well as the latest research on other ways we can boost our memory. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim...

Monkeypox is a viral infection that’s usually found in parts of Africa. But the current outbreak has shown up in countries including the U.K., Spain, Portugal, Australia, the United States and Canada. That’s just one of several things that has doctors puzzled. So this week we’re asking: What do I need to know about monkeypox? We get some clues from Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialis...

More than a dozen possible cases of severe acute hepatitis in children have popped up in Canada and many –including parents and researchers– are trying to figure out why. This week, we speak to Dr. Tehseen Ladha, a pediatrician and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( free...

Running or jogging is said to be one of the best cardio exercises you can do to stay in shape. But it’s not for everyone. This week we spoke with Dr. Jane Thornton, sports medicine physician and Canada Research Chair in Injury Prevention and Physical Activity for Health at Western University, about how running can help us stay healthy, how to start running and proper form. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1...

Vitamin D has been touted as a "wonder treatment" with a lot of health benefits. But what can vitamin D actually do for my health? This week on The Dose, Dr. Peter Lin, a Toronto-based family physician, speaks about what the research shows, dosage amounts, and much more. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the tab...

Since the first days of the pandemic, people who have recovered from the coronavirus have complained of long COVID symptoms. There’s still a lot to learn about the condition, but researchers are looking for answers. We spoke with Manali Mukherjee, assistant professor of medicine at McMaster University and affiliate scientist with the Research Institute of St. Joe’s Hamilton. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

This year's allergy season has come early in parts of Canada, with some specialists saying there's growing evidence to suggest a connection to climate change. We spoke with Dr. Anne Ellis, professor of medicine and chair of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Queen's University. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yo...

The sixth wave of COVID-19 has seen an increase in hospitalizations and more ICU admissions. What’s different this time is that we have a new medication called Paxlovid that can keep at-risk people out of hospital. We hear all the details on Paxlovid from Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and associate professor at the school of pharmacy at the University of Waterloo. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 list...

COVID case counts are once again climbing in many parts of Canada along with hospitalizations. This week, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended that a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine be given to all Canadians ages 80 and up. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table.]( freeheal...

You may have heard of prebiotics and probiotics, but now there’s a new term used by researchers: postbiotics. This week we’re asking: What do we know about postbiotics? We speak with Jennifer Stearns, assistant professor at McMaster University’s department of medicine. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table...

Psychedelics are no longer just illegal street drugs. A lot of research has come out about their benefits as treatments for people with mood and other mental health disorders. So what do we know about how psychedelics can treat mental illness? We hear from Dr. Robert Tanguay, clinical assistant professor at the University of Calgary and Chief Clinical Medical Officer at the Newly Institute. ━━━━━━...

Countries in the European Union are seeing a steep rise in COVID-19 cases, just weeks after lifting COVID-19 measures. Meanwhile, in most parts of Canada, pandemic restrictions are being eased. So with provinces lifting mask mandates, should I still wear a mask? We hear from Jason Tetro, a microbiologist and author of The Germ Files. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your f...

If you haven't been in to see your family doctor in the last two years, now may be the time to do it. So if I haven't had my regular checkup since before the pandemic, what should I ask my doctor? We find out from Dr. Peter Lin, a Toronto-based family doctor and a director at the Canadian Heart Research Centre. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freeh...

Some sleep experts in Canada have seen a rise in insomnia and sleep-related complaints since the start of the pandemic. For some people, sleep aids can help them get some much-needed rest. Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC podcast The Dose, spoke with Dr. Elliott Lee, a sleep specialist at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, about what we know about how effective sleep aids are in helping people s...

Canada and many other parts of the world are lifting restrictions and trying to move on from COVID-19. But not everyone is ready to ditch the mask and other pandemic measures. Dr. Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychiatry at University of British Columbia, shares insight on how people can navigate society with fewer COVID-19 restrictions. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

Denmark was one of the first countries to lift all of its COVID-19 restrictions earlier this month. The government says they no longer consider COVID-19 "a socially critical disease" and they’re learning to live with it. What can Canada take away from Denmark’s ‘live with COVID’ approach? We find out from Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa. ━━━━...

Kids under five are the only age group that aren’t eligible for a vaccine yet. Vaccine manufacturers are working on vaccines for young children, but parents and guardians have a lot of questions while they wait. What do we know about COVID-19 vaccines for kids 5 and under?  We find out from Dr. Cora Constantinescu, a pediatrician and infectious diseases physician at Alberta Children's Hospital in...

Omicron is still the dominant coronavirus strain in the country. But lately we’ve been hearing about what’s been dubbed the “little sister” of Omicron, known as subvariant BA.2. So what do we know about this Omicron subvariant? We find out from Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listen...

More than three times as many Canadians have received the Pfizer vaccine compared to the one made by Moderna. But Canada has a stockpile of Moderna vaccines. So how do the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines measure up now? We find out from Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and associate professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your...

As kids are either back in class or about to return, Dr. Brian Goldman speaks with infectious diseases pediatrician Dr. Fatima Kakkar about how parents can protect their kids in school against Omicron. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table.]( freehealth.ca/) [👇 Join them in 3 seconds.]( freehealth.ca/ ) ━...

Some countries are now administering a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to the most vulnerable. Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch helps answer the question: Just how many vaccine doses do we need to stay a step ahead of the pandemic? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table.]( freehealth.ca/) [👇...

The Omicron variant is sending COVID-19 cases skyrocketing across Canada. Guidelines over what to do are changing quickly. Dr. Matthew Oughton, an infectious diseases specialist at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, offers advice on what to do if you think you have the Omicron variant. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave...

Learning how to breathe better can have real impacts on your overall health, according to James Nestor, author of “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art”. He shares tips on how we can harness the power of our breath, even when we're wearing a mask, and feel better physically and mentally as a result. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ )...