Until recently, Jeremy Auger’s diabetes was unstable. Then he met endocrinologist Dr. David Campbell and the team with the diabetes mobile clinic in Calgary. The roving clinic brings care directly to people who are homeless or have low incomes. For patients like Jeremy, it’s a lifeline that helps prevent devastating complications.

Obesity has more than tripled in Canada since 1981. In their new book “Food Intelligence,” Canadian co-authors Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall - an award-winning health and science journalist, and a prominent researcher on metabolism in the U.S. - argue that it’s not because of a collective loss of willpower. Instead, they say the foods we buy and eat have become more calorie-dense, delicious and addictive over the last 40 years. 

More with Kevin Hall! Until recently, Hall was the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s key researcher on the connection between ultra-processed foods and obesity. He took an early retirement due to increasing censorship of his work. He talks about his groundbreaking study with former “The Biggest Loser” contestants, the link between Big Tobacco and Big Food, and why Canadian scientist expats like him may soon be looking to return home. 

When his wife died of endometrial cancer, Charles Kinch refused to accept that the care she received was the best she could get. His complaint, at first dismissed, has now sparked major changes in how cancer patients in British Columbia are treated and supported.

Like many Canadian small towns, Carberry, MB had become a healthcare desert. In 2023, the small ER closed and the last doctor left. Carberry embarked on the fight of its life to get healthcare back. Just days before the first of two new MDs starts work, Dr. Brian Goldman visits Carberry to learn about the Herculean efforts it takes for one town to reinstate healthcare, and make sure they don't lose it again. 

For three decades, Dr. Brian Day has been at the centre of the debate around private health care in Canada. Despite losing his court battle to bring it to B.C., Day still wants to see more private, for-profit clinics. The orthopedic surgeon and owner of Vancouver's Cambie Surgery Centre says competition from the private sector could push the public system to deliver faster and better care.

Ottawa’s Montfort hospital sees twice the number of patients for mental health emergencies as the Ontario average. And as this number increased in recent years, the everyday environment of the ER waiting room – chaotic, loud and overstimulating – became an ever larger trigger, causing distressed patients to flee or harm themselves or others. In the new Mental Health Emergency Zone right off the main ER, everything has been designed for de-escalation, and staff and patients are seeing dramatic results.

Gurleen Kaur Chahal is one of the inaugural students at Toronto Metropolitan University’s new Peel Region medical school, designed to serve the area’s diverse population. She's determined to be part of the solution for the kinds of struggles her multigenerational Punjabi household has faced accessing care.

After a seemingly innocuous question about pi, Allan Brooks tumbled down a ChatGPT rabbit hole. Three weeks later, he emerged, after spending 300 hours in a spiralling 7,000-prompt exchange with the chatbot. Dr. Keith Sakata, the psychiatrist whose viral thread on X breaks down the phenomenon known as “AI psychosis,” says the built-in sycophancy of large language models like ChatGPT needs to change before more harm is done.

How much would you be willing (and able) to pay to get your knee or hip replaced? Calgarian Linda Slater's knee pain became unbearable during her two-year wait to see an orthopedic surgeon. She drained her retirement savings to pay $30,000 for a new knee at a private Toronto clinic. Dr. Rick Zarnett, an orthopedic surgeon who works out of both a private clinic and public hospital, says the system needs to improve so patients can get surgery sooner.

Companies are spending big bucks advertising weight-loss drugs like Rybelsus, seeing huge potential in capitalizing on the popularity of Ozempic. But in Canada, so-called "reminder ads" can give only the name of the medication, not what it's for, telling people to ask their doctor for details. Ad man Terry O’Reilly says it can result in bad ads that turn people off, and pharmaceutical policy expert Barbara Mintzes says reminder ads can lead to overtreatment and high costs, doing more harm than good.

As a rapper, Bishop Brigante was no stranger to on-stage battles. We met up with the then-45-year-old when he was battling Stage 4 colon cancer, which he said was caught too late. Bishop wanted Canadians to have easier access to colonoscopies and said advocacy had given him newfound purpose.

 Many women report difficulties with orgasms, low libido or pain around intercourse. And given that many have never even learned much about their genitals, they don’t always know where to get help. A cadre of Canadian doctors specializing in women’s sexual health is trying to change that. They’re helping patients boost pleasure, while empowering them to get to know their sexual anatomy.

Attracting a family doctor to work in a community is challenging, with fewer physicians choosing family medicine. That's why Cheryl Gnyp, the recruiter for Castlegar, B.C., needs to stand out. She uses the board game Operation and specialized coffee as part of her 10-minute sales pitch to potential recruits at conferences. It can take years before a doctor starts working in the community, but she’s in it for the long haul.

Judith Morrison needs a kidney. While she's on dialysis, her sister Catherine is putting out a public plea for a living donor. But the search has been hard. And if they do find a donor, the sisters say that person will have to go through a long and opaque testing process. A process that experts say needs to be improved across Canada because the demand for kidney donations is high.

One morning as she arrived for her hospital shift, Winnipeg nurse Jennifer Noone was assaulted outside the staff entrance, leaving her with a bad concussion and PTSD. Rather than stay silent, she took the unusual step of having her assailant charged with assault. Manitoba Nurses Union President Darlene Jackson says there needs to be more and better security and violence should not be accepted as just part of the job.

At 28 years old, Dr. Soania Mathur was building her medical practice and expecting her first child. Then, she was diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson’s Disease. She tried to ignore her diagnosis for a decade, but as the symptoms progressed, she had to close her practice. Now, the self-described "Unshakeable MD" uses her experience as both a patient and a doctor to advocate for especially young people living with Parkinson's, as up to 10% of patients are under 40.

How far would you go to test your body in extreme heat? Ironworker apprentice Britnee Miazek travels hundreds of kilometres to Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario for a gruelling experiment to see how her body deals with high temperatures. She wants to find out why she stopped getting her period while working in sweltering conditions on a coke oven. Researchers are hoping to find answers for Britnee, and understand more about the long-term health effects of working in an increasingly hot environment.

This episode is part of a CBC collaboration called "Overheated" where White Coat, Black Art, What on Earth, and Quirks and Quarks explore how heat is affecting our health, our cities and our ecosystems.

When Kalpit Sharma started smoking high-THC weed several times a day, he thought he was just “living his life” as a university student. But then, he started hearing voices. Researcher Dr. Daniel Myran shares the science behind stories like Kalpit’s – and why young men are particularly at risk for concerning mental health outcomes.

We're replaying this episode in honour of National Indigenous History Month. Former senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Murray Sinclair spent the last months of his life at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. He found comfort in the music of Quinton Poitras, a Métis musician with Artists in Healthcare Manitoba who played his favourite songs. Niigaan Sinclair says that even though his father was in a lot of pain, the music helped him feel joy in the moment.