Staying #Up2Date 🚨

1: The Fine Print on Alzheimer’s Blood Tests

A cohort study of 2K older adults found that elevated Alzheimer’s disease-related blood biomarkers were associated with faster cognitive decline over 15 years. But the strength of those associations varied by sex and APOE genotype, particularly for p-tau217, p-tau181, neurofilament light chain and GFAP. As blood-based testing moves closer to clinical practice, the findings suggest the same result may not carry the same prognostic weight for every patient.

2: Pregnancy Complications and the Needs Behind Them

A cross-sectional study of 883 Black and/or Latina women found that adverse pregnancy outcomes were associated with a greater burden of health-related social needs. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, low birth weight and preterm birth were more common among those facing challenges related to education, family support, employment and financial strain. The findings suggest pregnancy complications could be an important opportunity to identify and address social needs alongside medical care.

3: Rethinking Ventricular Size in Heart Failure

A large cohort study of 273K patients hospitalized with heart failure found that both abnormally small and abnormally large left ventricles were associated with higher mortality. The findings suggest ventricular size could add useful information to routine risk stratification, and that dilation may not be the only size abnormality worth watching.

Retirement Has a To-Do List

Sponsored by Wealthsimple

You spent years building a practice. Winding one down takes planning too.

For physicians approaching retirement, there’s a lot to figure out: When should I stop working? Do I have enough saved? What happens to my medical corporation? When should I start taking CPP and OAS? Is my will up to date? And what order should I actually draw down my accounts in?

That last one shapes almost everything else. After decades of building up your investments, retirement flips the script – now it’s about how and when you spend them down. But the order matters as much as the amount. Withdraw from the wrong account at the wrong time, and you could push yourself into a higher tax bracket, trigger clawbacks on OAS, or leave your corporation’s retained earnings taxed less efficiently than they could be. Sequence it well – balancing non-registered accounts, RRSPs/RRIFs, TFSAs, and your corporation – and you keep more of what you built, for longer.

What would you do with $1,200 more a month to spend in retirement? Or what would a $1.2M bigger legacy mean to your heirs? Wealthsimple’s Wealth Management Advisors could help you maximize your investments for optimal growth, mapping out the right drawdown sequence for your accounts, your corporation, and your goals.

If retirement is somewhere on your 10-year horizon, it’s worth working through before you hang up the stethoscope.

Information shown is current as of Aug.19, 2026. Information based on Wealthsimple Wealth Management clients with a minimum of $1,000,000 in assets under management. Savings projections are hypothetical and are based on the average net worth and cash flow projections taken from existing Wealth Management clients’ portfolios, which include a mix of tax and portfolio optimizations, cash flow efficiencies and management fee savings. Potential savings are hypothetical and are not guaranteed, individual results may vary. All investment involves risk.

A Leg Up on Nerve Pain

How one hospital is helping amputees fight painful neuromas 

What happened: A first-of-its-kind Ontario program is taking a page from a cancer treatment to relieve pain for amputees. 

Why it matters: More than 200,000 Canadians live with limb loss or limb difference. After an amputation, severed nerves can develop into painful bundles of tissue called neuromas, sometimes causing chronic pain for years. Now, Hamilton General Hospital is freezing those nerves into submission.

Cryoablation is a minimally invasive procedure that can take about 20 minutes. It involves a very cold probe to freeze the nerves that cause pain at the amputation site. The probe inserted through tiny cuts rather than a large incision. Although the program is new, the procedure isn’t; it’s been used for years to treat cancer tumours and vascular malformations. 

After looking at cases from the US and Japan, an interventional radiologist discovered that the same cryoablation technology could be safely adapted to treat painful neuromas that can occur after an amputation. Since the breakthrough, 35 patients have been treated through the new program at Hamilton General Hospital, with an 85% success rate. 

But: Researchers haven’t yet tracked long-term effects for amputee patients who recieved cryoablation therapy. One man who participated in the procedure said the pain gradually began to creep back up a few months later, proving that the treatment isn’t permanent. The technique also carries risks, such as infection and bleeding. Since the surgery uses a frozen probe, there’s also a chance of skin burns similar to frostbite. 

Bottom line: One of the golden rules in life is sharing, and that teaching works for medicine too. Even though the surgery isn’t a cure, patients say cryoablation therapy has helped sleep through the night, some for the first time in decades.

Hot Off The Press 🔥

1: 🇨🇦 Giving a liver a second chance might give a patient one, too: a Quebec man just became the first patient in North America to undergo a liver transplant using new “regeneration” technology. At Montreal’s CHUM, surgeons used the Liver Assist system to circulate oxygen-rich fluid through a donated liver that might otherwise have been considered too risky to transplant, then tested how it functioned under blood-based conditions meant to mimic the body. CHUM performs about 70 liver transplants a year and estimates the machine could make 20 to 24 additional livers available in its first year alone. That would amount to roughly a third of the centre’s current annual transplant volume.

2: 👩‍⚕️ The Lindsay Clancy trial is putting postpartum psychosis in the spotlight, and raising difficult questions about how the rare but severe condition is recognized. Clancy’s defence argues she was experiencing postpartum psychosis when her 3 children died in 2023, while prosecutors argue she acted intentionally and deliberately. The case has renewed attention on a condition that can emerge rapidly after childbirth and requires urgent psychiatric care. Clancy repeatedly sought mental-health treatment before the deaths, making the trial a conversation about recognition and maternal mental-health care as much as a legal one. The trial has already put a little-known psychiatric emergency before a much bigger audience.

3: 🧠 Blood thinners may be doing more than preventing strokes. A Swedish study of 7,308 people with both Alzheimer’s disease and atrial fibrillation found those taking newer oral anticoagulants (NOACs) had significantly slower cognitive decline than those taking warfarin or no anticoagulant. The difference was modest, at just over 0.2 points per year on the MMSE, but researchers say that could add up over time. NOAC users also had lower risks of stroke, death, blood clots, and fractures, without an increased risk of major bleeding. One rather important asterisk: this was an observational study, so it can’t prove the drugs are protecting the brain. Still, preventing clots and potentially preserving cognition? Not a bad 2-for-1.

Notable Numbers 🔢

10: the number of Canadian youth who died in 2025 from injuries involving e-scooters, e-bikes and other powered micromobility devices, according to a new Canadian Paediatric Society report. Among severe injury cases, 47% involved head injuries, as the authors call for better tracking and more consistent safety rules across Canada.

$5,000: the prize money awarded to Jinny Lu, a 6-year-old rescue pug who was crowned the 2026 World’s Ugliest Dog after finishing 2nd last year. The competition celebrates unconventional pups and promotes adoption, and Jinny Lu also gets to be the face of MUG Root Beer. Beauty is in the eye of the beverage sponsor.

Over 2/3: the share of an octopus’s roughly 500 million neurons that live in its 8 arms, not its doughnut-shaped brain. Each arm can operate independently, and much of an octopus’s intelligence is spread throughout its body rather than localized in the brain. You could say they know it in their bones. Or, well.

Postcall Picks ✅

🚗 Read: whether you should lease, finance or pay cash for your next car. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer: cash avoids interest, financing lets you own without draining your savings, andwhile leasing can mean lower payments but no car at the end.

📚 Learn: what’s new in topical treatment for plaque psoriasis. This free 30-minute course covers where corticosteroids and newer nonsteroidal options fit, plus practical guidance on setting treatment expectations, safety and long-term management. 

🌿 Make: something with those fresh herbs currently taking over your garden. Canadian Living has 20 recipes, from lemony tomato basil pasta and classic pesto to strawberry-rhubarb basil crisp and apple-mint-lime granita. 

🎧 Listen: to why Canada’s emergency physicians are burning out and leaving. This 36-minute CMAJ podcast digs into new research finding burnout has climbed above pandemic-era levels, and how overcrowding, bed shortages and record patient volumes are pushing some physicians to cut their hours or leave emergency medicine altogether.

🎬 Watch: why teens may need some 1-on-1 time with their doctor. Adolescent medicine specialist Dr. Scott Hadland joins Doctor Mike to unpack why asking parents to step outside can help build trust and open the door to conversations teens might otherwise avoid.

Relax 🧩

First clue: Peninsula home to Columbus, Picasso, and Ronaldo

Give it a go →

Need a rematch? We’ve got you covered. Check out our Crossword Archive to find every puzzle we’ve ever made, all in one place.

Think you crushed it? Challenge your physician friends to beat your time.

Meme of the Week 😂

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