The Dose

It’s been said that Canada and other developed nations are in the grip of an epidemic of loneliness. The good news is that things like volunteering to help others and even chatting with someone you don’t know can be good for your health. Kate Mulligan, senior director of the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing, shares what we know about how socializing can benefit our health. For transcripts...

This week, we're answering your questions about perimenopause and menopause symptoms and treatments. Dr. Shafeena Premji, a family doctor and medical director of Mahogany Clinic in Calgary, shares her best advice on how to manage symptoms and when to speak to a health-care provider. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/the-dose-transcripts-listen-1.673...

Intermittent fasting is becoming more widely discussed, with research still emerging. This week, Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist and expert on intermittent fasting, shares his tips on who should fast and how to do it. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/the-dose-transcripts-listen-1.6732281 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your...

Across Canada, we’ve seen high numbers of people sick with flu and a lot of kids sick with RSV or Group A strep. In some cases, people have both COVID and another viral illness. Allison McGeer, an adult infectious disease physician at the Sinai Health System, goes through what you should know about co-infections. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( fre...

If you've ever struggled to keep your New Year's resolution to exercise more, experts say to start small and to schedule time to workout are key. Mary Jung, an associate professor at UBC’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences, shares her tips on how to make exercise a habit. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on t...

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...

It’s the holiday season and for many, visits from the inlaws or hosting holiday parties can be a stressful time. Dr. Melanie Badali, a clinical psychologist at North Shore Stress and Anxiety Clinic in North Vancouver, discusses how mindfulness can help people get through the holiday season. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't le...

Group A streptococcus has been in the headlines recently after 15 kids died in the U.K. Dr. Joanne Langley, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, discussed what guardians and adults should know about this bacteria that can cause a range of illnesses. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table.]( f...

You've probably heard that drinking eight glasses of water a day is key, but experts say that doesn't work for everyone. Dr. Jane Thornton, a sports medicine physician and former Olympic rower, debunks some of the water myths on this week's episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table.]( freehealth.ca/)...

We’ve been hearing a lot about Ozempic recently. It’s a drug to treat diabetes, but it’s now becoming popular with celebrities and regular folks wanting to shed a few pounds. Dr. Ali Zentner, a Vancouver-based specialist in internal medicine, diabetes and obesity, shares what you should know about the drug. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealt...

The annual flu season is back. Recently, health officials have taken the step of calling the sharp increase in flu cases an “influenza epidemic.” Dr. Allison McGeer, an adult infectious disease physician at the Sinai Health System, walks us through everything you need to know about this year's flu season. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth....

Parents have been dealing with a new challenge this cold and flu season: finding over the counter pain and fever medication for their kids. So this week on The Dose we’re asking: How should sick children and their parents cope with this medication shortage? Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and associate professor at the school of pharmacy at the University of Waterloo, has some tips for parents. ━━━━━...

Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cancer in Canada, but if caught early, many people have a good chance of surviving. But screening for it is key. Dr. Jill Tinmouth, lead scientist at the colorectal cancer screening program at Ontario Health and gastroenterologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, speaks with guest host Dr. Peter Lin about colorectal cancer screening. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

A lot more kids are heading to emergency rooms with symptoms of RSV so this week we're sharing what you should know about RSV. Dr. Fatima Kakkar, an infectious diseases pediatrician at Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital, shares what parents should know about the virus. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table...

Millions of Canadians are without a family doctor or primary care provider. Dr. Peter Lin, a family physician and a director of the Canadian Heart Research Centre, spells out ways people can take charge of their health when they're in between or searching for a primary care provider. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave you...

Jen and Neil are a happily married couple in their thirties. From the outside, life is picture perfect. But behind their smiles lies a heartbreaking secret: they can’t get pregnant. Join CBC journalist Jen White and her husband Neil Hyde in this intimate and informative eight-part series on their yearslong struggle with fertility — a journey filled with hormone injections, transvaginal ultrasounds...

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian women and some experts want women to get routinely screened after they turn 40. Dr. Paula Gordon, a breast radiologist and a clinical professor in the University of British Columbia’s radiology department, breaks down how often women should be screened, how to be breast aware and why knowing your breast density matters. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

This week on The Dose, we hear from one expert on what we know and don't know about the health effects of vaping and how it could help smokers quit cigarettes. David Hammond, a professor in the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, answers some of those questions and more. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [...

Diet plays a significant role in our risk of getting cancer. But what foods are good, and what food and drink should we only eat in moderation? We’ll cover the latest research on cancer risk and red meat, alcohol, and sugar. All with the help of Rachel Murphy, assistant professor in the School of Population and Public Health at University of British Columbia and scientist at BC Cancer. ━━━━━━━━━━━...

It's that time of year again: Time to get the annual flu shot. But this year, the influenza vaccines will roll out along with the bivalent shots and people have questions about timing of their vaccines. Dr. Brian Goldman spoke with Ashley Davidson, a pharmacist and owner of a Shoppers Drug Mart in Alberta. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth...

A new, decade-long study published in the British Medical Journal suggests artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose could put us at greater risk of cardiovascular diseases. This study joins many others with similar unfavourable findings. Leslie Beck, a registered dietitian and columnist, breaks down the potential risks of the sugar substitutes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners thi...

Health Canada approved a new COVID-19 bivalent vaccine booster from Moderna earlier this month. The updated shot builds on the original vaccine by adding protection specifically against the Omicron BA.1 variant. Dr. Lynora Saxinger, infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta, shares what you need to know as the boosters roll out. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week....

The number of kids up-to-date on their routine immunizations has been dropping. Meanwhile, vaccine-preventable diseases have reappeared, with a confirmed case of polio in the U.S. The virus has also been detected in wastewater in the U.K. and Israel. Dr. Sloane Freeman, a pediatrician at St. Michael's Hospital, shares what she's seeing in her practice — and what parents can do to get their kids ca...

Balance is crucial to our overall well-being. But it can be challenged at any age, and we start to lose our balance in our 50s. The good news is that simple exercise can help maintain and even restore balance. Lisa Hoffart, a physiotherapist with Canadian Sport Institute Calgary and Group 23 Sports Medicine helps answer: Why is it important to maintain my sense of balance as I age? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

Intrauterine devices, also known as IUDs, are a popular form of birth control in this country. This week on The Dose, Dr. Renée Hall, medical director of Kelowna General Hospital's Women’s Services Clinic, shares what you need to know about IUDs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 12,347 listeners this week. [Claim your free resources →]( freehealth.ca/ ) [Don't leave yours on the table.]( freehealth.ca/) [👇...