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Welcome to your evening edition of West Coast Health.

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Fitness

More fodder for debate on cardio vs. strength training

Exercisers generally divide among two distinct camps: cardio lovers and weight-room junkies. Discussions about which workout is best has long been the source of debate, with each side making a decent argument about their respective benefits.

Most of the debate centres around the belief aerobic exercise is superior at improving cardiovascular health and fitness, while strength training excels at improving body composition and muscular strength, and endurance. Admittedly, both types of exercise boost overall cardiovascular fitness, contribute to weight loss and build muscle, but for anyone wanting to reduce cardiovascular risk factors and the loss of muscle associated with aging, the real question is which workout offers the best bang for the buck.

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Discovery

All the cells in your body can learn and make memories, researchers find

Your brain is constantly forming new memories, based on experience and repetition. Scientists now know that cells in other parts of the body are working in similar ways. They may even form stronger “memories” through repeated behaviour alternated with periods of rest, much in the way our brains remember things better through repetition.

“Learning and memory in animals exhibit a peculiar feature known as the massed-spaced effect,” scientists from New York University wrote in new research that was just published in the journal Nature. “Training distributed across multiple sessions (spaced training) produces stronger memory than the same amount of training applied in a single episode (massed training).”

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Comment

RFK Jr. is a danger to health care in the U.S. — and Canada

You would think that the return of a Kennedy scion to the White House would be a moment to celebrate, at least for many of a particular political stripe. But the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the new Trump administration has left many aghast, especially doctors, scientists, and educators.

Despite president John F. Kennedy having famously championed the polio vaccine, his nephew, RFK Jr., is an avowed anti-vaccination zealot, blaming a host of repeatedly unproven ills on such inoculations.

He has additionally claimed that wifi radiation causes autism, allergies, asthma, eczema. (There is no compelling scientific evidence for any of this.) He has suggested that the 1918 Spanish Flu was the result of vaccine research. (The flu vaccine was developed in the 1930s.) He has stated that AIDS is not caused by a virus, but by “the gay lifestyle.” (Globally, the lion’s share of AIDS deaths have occurred amongst heterosexual people, and the causal link with the HIV virus has been repeatedly proven.)

Headlines

• Ontario doctor who 'engaged in the sexual abuse of a patient' reinstated

• Quebec announces province's first abortion access plan

• One baby in 10 doesn't have a family doctor in Quebec: report

• A social media ban for children younger than 16 is introduced in Australia’s Parliament

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