Eat Move Think

As we start to think about New Year's resolutions, host Shaun Francis talks to Dr. David Macklin, who helps people manage their weight. Here, Dr. Macklin applies the tips he's developed to help people eat better, and applies them to the creation of other positive habits, such as how to become more physically active. Tip number one, Dr. Macklin says, involves exploring the reason you want to change...

What a time to debut a wellness podcast! Host Shaun Francis wanted to break down the latest advice from scientists, MDs and academics in terms everyone could understand. In 2020 we explored nutrition, fitness and mental health—as well as a little virus known as COVID-19. This year-in-review session sees Shaun and producer Christopher Shulgan look back on Eat Move Think's first 43 episodes, using t...

Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca—their vaccines and others will dominate the public discussion for months to come. Are they safe? When will they start to change our lives? And what can employers do to make a difference in the fight against the pandemic? In an episode hosted by Medcan chief medical officer Dr. Peter Nord, occupational health experts Dr. Jason Abrams, Dr. Matthew Burnstein and Dr. Alain...

The Quarantine Backyard Ultra is a diabolically cruel running race that requires its contestants to run four miles per hour—for as long as they can. The winner is the last person standing. The fact that it's an endurance contest with no clear finish line makes it a proxy for the coronavirus pandemic, argues running columnist Alex Hutchinson, who reviewed the science of races without finish lines t...

What actions create a healthy lifestyle? What preventative health measures should we all take to ensure a long, happy and active life? It's all in here. With the help of such Medcan experts as chief medical officer Dr. Peter Nord, nutritionist Leslie Beck, fitness trainer Stephen Salzmann and psychologist Dr. Jonathan Danson, host Shaun Francis and producer Chris Shulgan distill the recommendation...

Canada's new 24-Hour Movement Guidelines include brand-new recommendations for sleep. The move reflects a growing awareness among researchers that rest and recovery is crucial to overall wellness. Not getting enough shut-eye can lead to weight gain, memory problems and poor mental health. In this episode, host Shaun Francis interviews Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput, the expert who helped to develop both...

Heart disease remains the second highest cause of death of Canadians, behind cancer. About 63,000 Canadians have heart attacks every year. Dr. Beth Abramson is a Toronto cardiologist and the director of the Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre at St. Michael's Hospital. She argues that recent advances in cardiology are changing the way we understand life after heart attacks. Statins, pills...

Time-restricted eating is said to encourage weight loss and improve metabolic health. But how effective is it? In conversation with guest host Leslie Beck is Dr. Ethan Weiss, a cardiologist who studies human metabolism at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Weiss used to be a fan of intermittent fasting—until he conducted his own randomized controlled trial on humans. His findings may...

In the U.S. and Canada the public-health response to COVID-19 discouraged people from visiting hospitals or seeking care from MDs, prompting cancellations for childhood vaccinations, colonoscopies and mammograms. How will such decisions affect overall wellness? And what should we learn from what happened? To discover the answers, host Shaun Francis interviews Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of Harvard Medical...

Today wearable technology is integral to wellness and the future of precision medicine, with such devices as the Fitbit, the Oura Ring and the just-released Apple Watch Series 6. But which tech is best? For guidance, host Shaun Francis talked to the most tapped-in tech observer out there, Amber Mac, about the little-known wearable that Amber thinks tops everyone else. Plus, the goods on the COVID...

Disagreeing with stop-the-spread coronavirus strategies is Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine in biostatistics at Harvard. As a founding signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, Prof. Kulldorff believes most COVID government policy is wrong. Protect the vulnerable, he says, and allow the virus to spread through the young healthy population to achieve herd immunity. Here, in a feature...

The pandemic is spurring positive lifestyle changes — such as the transition away from restaurant eating, and toward home cooking. In this episode, guest host Leslie Beck, Medcan's director of food and nutrition, interviews Prof. Sylvain Charlebois, an expert in food trends and eating patterns. Based on surveys Charlebois has conducted at the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, the so...

Health columnist André Picard has been at the Globe and Mail newspaper since 1987. Covering the coronavirus has made him one of the most closely-read pundits of the pandemic. Here, Picard speaks with host Shaun Francis about his belief that we have to learn to live with COVID-19, the disastrous effects of the virus on long-term care, and what the pandemic reveals about our health-care system overa...

Leading the fight against the professional weight loss industry is Dr. Arya Sharma, a crusader for a new, medical approach to treating obesity that recognizes the patient's lived experience and takes into account just how difficult it can be for a person to lose weight and keep it off. But hope is on the horizon, Dr. Sharma says. Here, Dr. David Macklin, Medcan's director of weight management, int...

The COVID-19 vaccine prompts a lot of questions. How effective should we expect it to be? How long will its protection last? Will it be safe? Has Canada secured enough doses and from the right pharmaceutical companies? And perhaps the single biggest issue: When will a vaccine actually arrive for Canadians? In a wide-ranging interview with executive producer Christopher Shulgan, Medcan's Dr. Jason...

In the movies, few people seemed healthier than Black Panther—which is what made the recent death of the actor who played the superhero, Chadwick Boseman, so surprising. Boseman was only 43. What can you do to prevent colon cancer? What's the future of colon cancer treatment? Guest host Dr. Peter Nord, Medcan's chief medical officer, interviews gastroenterologist Dr. Jeff Axler to get the answers.

How should parents prepare children for back to school? How to speak to anxieties about masks and social distancing? What do you say to a child who is worried about catching the coronavirus? Or passing it on to grandparents or immunocompromised parents? Child psychologist Dr. Naomi Slonim provides her tips for moms and dads looking to prepare schoolchildren of all ages.   Eat Move Think is produce...

How much protein do you need if you're trying to lose weight but also build muscle? What's better—plant- or animal-based protein? Why is protein so key in preventing sarcopenia, or age-related decline in strength? And, is it possible to consume too much protein? In a special feature interview with protein expert Stuart Phillips of McMaster University, guest host Leslie Beck, Medcan's director of f...

Strength and conditioning training is key to long-term wellness—but fitness culture has been profoundly affected by the pandemic's social-distancing requirements. So how should we work out in future? How should gyms change—and how should we equip at-home workout facilities? To find out, guest host Stephen Salzmann, Medcan's director of fitness, consulted with legendary strength and conditioning tr...

The pandemic forced many couples to spend more time together than ever before—and anecdotal evidence suggests some relationships are suffering as a result. Guest host Dr. Gina Di Giulio, Medcan's Director of Mental Health, spoke with sexologist Jessica O'Reilly of "Sex with Dr. Jess" fame, for some fresh, easy-to-follow tips on how to renew intimacy and return some romance to your relationship. Fo...

Find yourself with an aching lower back because your work-from-home arrangement sees you typing away on your bed or a bar stool? Turns out many people are feeling lower back pain these days. So we arranged an interview with the world authority on the causal mechanisms of disc and spine issues: Dr. Stuart McGill, the author of Back Mechanic and the founder of Backfitpro . McGill fixed back issues w...

Is the COVID-19 virus really able to waft about on tiny aerosol droplets for tens of metres through HVAC systems? How possible is it to catch the virus from an elevator button or a playground slide? Lots of people have lots of worries about catching COVID — but how is it really transmitted? To find out, guest host Dr. Peter Nord, chief medical officer of Medcan, interviews two experts: Queen's Uni...

Travel restrictions are easing for some countries, and some of us are considering air travel. So what special considerations should you take the next time you find yourself on a plane? How can you mitigate infection risk when flying? To investigate, guest host Dr. Aisha Khatib, the clinical director of travel medicine at Medcan, interviews Dr. Vincent Poirier, a medical advisor to both Air Canada...

Do you find yourself exercising and eating well but it doesn't seem to make any difference? In this episode, the registered dietitian Leslie Beck, Medcan's director of food and nutrition and a columnist at the Globe and Mail newspaper, steps in as a guest host to describe eight common calorie blunders that could be keeping you from losing weight—and provides tips on how to solve them. For complete...

Maybe you haven't been on a sports team for years. Maybe you've never even played a sport. But as we embark on this pandemic-inspired societal reboot, maybe you're thinking of taking something up. So which sport should you pursue? What's the best sport for long-term health and fitness? Host Shaun Francis investigates with triathlon historian Bob Babbitt, football-is-medicine pioneer Peter Krustrup...