1: Semaglutide Holds Up in Frailty

A new secondary analysis of the SELECT trial looked at 17,604 adults with cardiovascular disease and overweight or obesity but no diabetes and found semaglutide’s cardiovascular and other clinical benefits were generally consistent regardless of baseline frailty. Interestingly, participants with greater frailty appeared to see larger improvements in quality of life, and frailty status was more likely to improve than worsen with semaglutide versus placebo. The authors caution that this is a post hoc analysis, but the findings suggest frailty alone may not be a reason to rule out treatment in otherwise eligible patients.

2. The Oral Health Blind Spot 🦷

Pharmacists may be well positioned to spot medication-related oral health problems, but a new Australian study suggests they’re often missed. Interviews with pharmacists and dentists found xerostomia was the most commonly recognized issue, while related problems such as dental caries, candidiasis and swallowing difficulties were less consistently identified. Participants pointed to limited training and unclear referral pathways as barriers, and called for simple tools that could bring oral-health screening into medication reviews, particularly for older adults taking multiple medications.

3. A Genetic Red Flag for Lamotrigine?

A new case-control study has identified HLA-A*32:01 as a potential risk marker for lamotrigine-induced DRESS. Among 29 patients with confirmed lamotrigine-induced DRESS and 290 matched lamotrigine-tolerant controls, the variant was found in 41.4% of cases versus 4.1% of controls, corresponding to substantially higher odds. The marker isn’t included in current commercial pharmacogenomic panels, and the study was small, so this isn’t ready to change routine screening yet. But it could eventually help identify patients at higher risk before starting lamotrigine.

Drug Shortages ⚠️

Pantoprazole Magnesium

Telmisartan-HCT

Newly Approved Drugs ✨

Epkinly (epcoritamab): A bispecific antibody used to treat certain B-cell lymphomas.

We wanted to know who actually owns the pharmacies in our own city, and could not find the answer anywhere. So we built it.

Every licensed community pharmacy in British Columbia, 1,543 of them, is mapped to its owner of record from the College register. In Ontario, 5,440 active pharmacies are searchable by name and city.

What surprised us: BC has 1,001 distinct owners, and only 78 of them own more than one store. Independent ownership still makes up most of the market, even with Loblaw at more than 200 stores and the Jim Pattison Group at more than 120.

It's free to search at PharmacyBroker.ca, with no registration required, with no registration required. We refresh it from the registers and track what’s changed, including transfers, openings and closures.

Pharmacy-based tick care helped cut ER visits

What happened: Giving pharmacists the ability to assess tick bites and prescribe preventive Lyme disease treatment may be helping keep patients out of Nova Scotia ERs. A new Dalhousie University study reviewed 1,019 tick-bite visits at 3 ERs before and after pharmacists gained prescribing authority in 2021. Visits dropped from 617 before the change to 402 after.

Why it matters: After accounting for overall ER volume, tick-bite visits fell from 0.70% to 0.35% of emergency visits. More than half of patients had spent over 2 hours in the ER for their assessment.

And this isn't just a Nova Scotia issue. Lyme disease is rising across Canada, with 5,809 reported cases in 2024, compared with 144 in 2009. Meanwhile, Nova Scotia pharmacists assessed more than 8,000 tick bites between April and June 2026 alone, offering patients another place to seek timely care.

But: The study doesn't prove pharmacy-based care caused the decline. It was a retrospective study involving only 3 ERs, and other changes in how patients sought care could have contributed. And not every tick bite requires antibiotics; pharmacists assess whether patients meet the criteria for Lyme disease prophylaxis before prescribing.

Bottom line: As ticks spread into more parts of Canada, Nova Scotia offers an early look at what could happen when this type of care moves into pharmacies. After pharmacists gained prescribing authority, tick-bite visits to the ER fell, suggesting pharmacies could play a bigger role in managing this growing problem across Canada.

1: 🎰 Have you noticed the uptick in gambling ads around the province? A new study found that more men and boys are showing up in the ER with gambling-related problems. Ontario now has 80+ gaming and betting sites run by private companies, and, since the legalization of single-game sports betting in 2021, the enticing promo has surged. By April-June 2025, ER visit rates were 154% higher than expected among males aged 10-29 and 116% for men aged 30-44. Doctors say the ratio between support messaging and betting ads is getting out of hand and are calling for tighter controls.

2: 📚 There might be a place for Danielle Steel in cognitive workouts. A new review suggests that reading for pleasure could lower dementia risk by up to a third and support brain and mental health across the lifespan. In adults, reading was linked to less stress and more empathy, no matter the genre. Children who started reading young showed better attention, memory, and problem solving skills. This review lands at an awkward time, though: reading among children and teens is at its lowest level since records began.

3: 🧬 Could a brain protein help repair damage from progressive MS? Early research from the University of Manitoba found that restoring levels of neuregulin-1 helped repair damaged brain tissue and improve mobility and cognitive function in animal models. That’s particularly interesting in Canada, which has one of the highest rates of MS in the world, with about 90,000 people living with the disease. It’s still early days, though: the findings haven’t been tested in humans yet, with clinical trials planned as a next step.

4: 🇨🇦 One Canadian neighbourhood has been named one of the coolest in the world, and it’s not in Toronto. Downtown St. Catharines ranked 9th globally, beating out neighbourhoods like New York’s Financial District. Its mix of local businesses, arts and culture, and proximity to Niagara wine country helped it make the cut. The mayor of St. Catharines was thrilled with the ranking and hopes that more people will visit in the future. 

🚂 Escape: peak fall colours aboard one of North America’s prettiest train rides. The 78-mile route winds along the St. Lawrence River through small Quebec towns, with ocean views and some seriously good leaf-peeping along the way. 

🎃 Make: one of Bon Appétit’s most-saved recipes of the week. Three-ingredient pumpkin soup, weeknight pumpkin chili and sheet-pan chicken souvlaki are among the dishes everyone’s bookmarking as fall officially takes over.

💰 Save: your impulse purchases for October. Amazon’s next big Prime sale is coming to Canada, which means 2 days of deals and several weeks of pretending you were going to buy that thing anyway.

🍿 Watch: a genuinely good movie rather than scrolling for 40 minutes. IndieWire picked the best movies newly streaming this September across the major platforms.

🎧 Listen: to whether we’ve all taken “gut health” a little too far. Scientific American’s Science Quickly dives into the wonderfully named trend of “poop maxxing”, exploring what actually supports a healthy gut, what’s wellness hype and why social media has become so obsessed with optimizing our bathroom habits.

First clue: Scalpel, for one

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.

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