Staying #Up2Date 🚨

1: New Home, New Connections

A cohort study looked at how social participation shifts when older adults move into nursing homes or assisted living. In 606 long-term care entrants, community involvement — things like clubs, religious services, or seeing friends and family — had already dipped in the years leading up to the move. But after moving in, participation actually went up: 15.6% more joined clubs, 12.6% more attended religious services. The boost wasn’t evenly spread, though — Black, Hispanic, and other minority residents were less likely to see the same gains.

2: Inflammation and Insomnia: A Potent Pair for Depressive Symptoms

In this RCT, adults 60+ with insomnia who got an IV dose of endotoxin (to induce inflammation) had triple the increase in depressive symptoms compared to those without insomnia. The takeaway: older adults with insomnia may be especially vulnerable to mood dips when inflammation hits.

3: AI-Assisted Teaching Helps Medical Students Sharpen Surgical Skills

This RCT out of McGill tested whether AI-assisted teaching could sharpen med students’ surgical skills. Students who got personalized, AI-informed feedback from their tutors scored higher than those with human tutoring alone — both in practice resections (mean diff = 0.26; 95% CI, 0.09-0.43; P = .01) and in transferring skills to a complex realistic scenario (mean diff = 0.20; 95% CI, 0.06-0.34; P = .02). The verdict: pairing human input with AI could give trainees the best of both worlds.

Deepfake Doctors Are Prescribing Scams

Is the doctor on your screen real?

What happened: If you’ve seen a video of a respected physician enthusiastically endorsing a “miracle” health product, chances are it was a deepfake. Using sophisticated AI, scammers are creating eerily realistic videos of real doctors to sell unproven — and sometimes dangerous — meds and supplements. It’s a new frontier in fraud, and it’s putting patients’ health at risk.

Why it matters: Deepfake medical scams aren’t a distant “what if” — they’re already here. A recent CBC News investigation found Quebec doctors’ faces and voices hijacked to push questionable products. In Australia, a leading diabetes specialist had to personally reassure patients after a deepfake of him appeared online, falsely criticizing proven medication. These scams work because they go straight for the heart of the doctor–patient relationship: trust.

Generative AI is now so good — and so easy to use — that making a convincing fake video is almost effortless. Canada’s intelligence service has warned deepfakes are a growing threat to public safety and democracy.

The threat is already hitting close to home. Montreal ICU chief Dr. François Marquis was stunned when people started calling after his image was used in a scam. Another physician, Dr. Alain Vadeboncoeur, has had his likeness used to promote products for sexual dysfunction.

But: Efforts to fight back are growing. In Canada, provinces like BC have new laws criminalizing the creation of altered and AI-generated intimate images. Tech companies are in an arms race of their own, building tools that scan for subtle inconsistencies and add digital watermarks to prove a video’s authenticity.

Bottom line: In a world where it’s getting harder to tell what’s real, patient education is our best defense. Remind patients: if a doctor’s pitching products on social media, take it with a shaker of salt — and talk to a real one instead.

Hot Off The Press

1: 🥸 Sophisticated “paper mill” networks are cranking out fake research, and it’s not just a few bad actors. A new Northwestern-led analysis found organized webs of authors, editors, and brokers gaming journals, selling authorship slots, and even hijacking defunct titles to slip in sham studies. Fraudulent science is growing 10× faster than legitimate literature, seeding bogus data into meta-analyses and, potentially, AI training sets. Without serious guardrails, we may be watching the scientific record rot in real time.

2: 💔 A gunman who believed the COVID-19 vaccine had harmed him fired 181 rounds into the CDC’s Atlanta campus Friday, shattering 150 windows, killing a police officer, and sending 92 children in an on-site daycare into lockdown. CDC staff say the agency was deliberately targeted, and many blame years of anti-vaccine rhetoric — including from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — for creating a climate where such violence feels inevitable. In a profession already strained by pandemic burnout and political attacks, the shooting is a chilling reminder that public health work now comes with a target.

3: 🚒 The fast-moving wildfire in Newfoundland and Labrador is now forcing evacuations near St. John’s, the province’s largest city. It’s part of a season that’s already burned 7.3 million hectares nationwide — Canada’s second-worst on record — and sent smoke into Toronto, briefly pushing it to the world’s No. 2 spot for worst air quality (a quick correction from last week’s “top 3”). Climate change isn’t just lengthening fire seasons, it’s rewriting the map of who gets to breathe easy.

4: 🏠 A new report predicts a grim future for Canadian homebuyers. By 2032, the average Toronto home could hit a staggering $1.8M, with Vancouver soaring to $2.8M, according to Concordia University researchers. Without a major boost in housing supply, they warn, the climb is inevitable — and rising population plus limited land could drive prices even higher.

Notable Numbers 🔢

6: the number of mountains Seoul National University students in South Korea must climb for a $540 scholarship. With over 1,400 students applying, you could say the competition is reaching new peaks.

3: weekly servings of French fries linked to a 20% higher risk of Type 2 diabetes. Boiled, baked, or mashed potatoes didn’t have the same effect, so it might be time to rethink your burger’s sidekick.

30: people in a small study hinting that blowing into a conch shell might ease sleep apnea. The results sound promising, but experts say it’s too early to call this the conch-lusion we’ve been dreaming of.

Postcall Picks ✅

📖 Read: why so many Canadian superstar athletes are suddenly dominating sports outside of hockey. 

🍽️ Eat: the best sheet pan chicken piccata. It’s so good you’ll want to make it every night, and since it’s all on one pan, clean-up is a breeze.

🎧 Listen: to the Canadian Investor podcast as it breaks down earnings from top Canadian stocks. Find out which companies are "printing money" and what new US tariffs mean for investors.

🤑 Save: on back-to-school deals. Best Buy has some laptops, headphones and backpacks on sale.

Taking the Pulse 🫀

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First clue: Lid ___ AKA Graves' ophthalmopathy

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