The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - A Wednesday End Bits Special -- Could Bach Be Your Solution to Better Health?

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

If you have high blood pressure, have you tried Bach? Or Beethoven, or Pavarotti? Maybe you should, say researchers. That story and more on your Wednesday End Bits special. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Ransbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. It's an N-Bit special, and today we got lots of stuff. Everything from classical music to travel tips to artificial intelligence. It's all here on this Wednesday. Coming right up. And hello there.

So first of all, on this Wednesday, we give you a final advisory on tomorrow's. Your turn. Thursdays are, of course, your turn and the random renter. Your turn question for this week was about changing the clocks. It seems to be a go-to subject, not just in Canada, but in the U.S., in Europe. A lot of people are talking about this. And whether or not the old spring-forward fallback thing really still applies to our world today. and whether it's time to scrap it and just have a constant time.

So that's the question this week. Where do you stand on that? It's worth remembering how this process started. Now, it doesn't happen everywhere in the world, but it happens a lot of places. Now, some of the people who have written have said started during the First World War. Well, yeah, it did, but the idea. idea has been around for centuries.

In fact, it was Benjamin Franklin, the U.S. founding father and a pretty acclaimed inventor. First proposed daylight saving time in 1784, 1784. It was seen as a cunning way to save on candles. Now, daylight saving time, DST, the pro-exam. of moving clocks forward by one hour in the summer was started in Germany in 1916. And yes, it was started because of World War I. During World War I, it was a way to save energy resources such as coal,

using fewer electric lights and less heating during the lighter evenings and being more productive. Now, sometimes it's a good thing as proposed by your enemy. So it was just weeks after Germany introduced DST. Other countries adopted the idea including the UK, where it was named British summertime, BST. Still is. During World War II, the UK introduced British double summertime, and clocks were advanced two hours.

This meant that during winter, while clocks went back an hour, they were still one hour ahead of GMT, Greenwich meantime. to increase productivity during daylight. Okay, there's your history lesson on the clocks movement. Your thoughts, in no more than 75 words, need to be in by, well, 3 p.m. Eastern time this afternoon, so it doesn't give you much time. A couple hours, right?

Include your name and the location you're writing from. All right? So the question is, where do you stand? where are you on this whole idea of moving the clocks back and forth? So I look forward to hearing your answers on that question. Now, let's get to our NBits. And I think most of you know what NBits are. There are those little stories that I've seen or Mark Bulgutche has seen

and sent to me and said, hey, people might be interested in this. How is your blood pressure? I've had high blood pressure for at least 30 years. Now it's controlled. I'm happy about it. But sometimes there's something that you can do that makes it even easier to deal with. So that's why we go to this story in the telegraph, the British newspaper. I am in the UK this week.

So it wasn't hard to see this one. Here's their story. The headline, kind of says it all in the headline, high blood pressure, listen to Mozart or Bach. Patients with hypertension condition are recovered more quickly

in virtual forest with classical music. Now, you know, I think that's, I think most people with high blood pressure probably have sensed this before that if you can

calm down and have relaxing music going on in the background things turn to benefit you greatly. So let me read a little bit of the story. Listening to Bach or Mozart could help to reduce high blood

pressure. Research has shown scientists found hospital patients who were played classical music using virtual reality headsets, saw their blood pressure fall faster than those given standard treatment alone. The playlist included Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Chikovsky, and others. The 130 patients in the trial in Turkey, that's where it was taking place, had hypertensive urgency, meaning their blood pressure was extremely high without signs of organ damage.

All received standard blood pressure drugs. Half were given virtual reality headsets, transporting them from the noise and bright lights of A&E to tranquil scenes of rivers and trees. The classical soundtrack accompanied the virtual landscapes. Within 15 minutes, 15 minutes, blood pressure among those receiving the extra treatment had fallen by four to five millimeters HG.

I don't know what that means. But suffice it to say it had fallen. And that's more than in patients in the other group. They weren't getting this. Sadly, for anyone hoping to exchange their prescription for a burst of Bach, the researcher stressed that the treatment was in addition to medication, not an alternative. So that's, you know, that's interesting.

It talks about how anxiety triggers stress hormones which tighten blood vessels and can push blood pressure higher. We treat them, said one of the doctors with blood pressure medication, but what I keep kept noticing was how anxious and frightened many of these patients are. The music's benefits did not last indefinitely. After an hour, blood pressure was broadly, similar in both groups.

So in other words, you get sick of Bach. Well, you don't get sick of it, but it only is a relaxing mechanism for so long. But that gives you an hour. The findings are being presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress in Paris. They're not the first to suggest the right classical repertoire might be good

for the heart. Oxford University of researchers found that when it came to blood pressure. Not all tunes are created equal. Their 2015 study found music with repeated 10-second rhythms was associated with falls in blood pressure and heart rate. Successful examples included Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

Verdi's... Okay, I'm not good on some of the stuff. Verdi's Va Pensiero, and Puccini's Nessendorma. I've told you before that Nesmdorma is one of my favorite pieces of music, especially when it's sung by one of the great opera singers of all time.

You know who that is. I saw him perform live for the last time before he passed away. And that was at the Olympics in Italy. Torino. You know what I'm talking about. All right. Moving on. story. Let's see, which one should we tell you now? Well, this is a health-related one. Are you or do you know

someone who is on a weight loss drug? You know how popular they are these days. Well, weight loss drugs are causing an interesting little side situation. Some people swear by them, right? They've lost weight. They have their health. They're convinced it's all been good. Here's an interesting side of fact of weight lost drugs. That's a piece in the New York Times just a couple of days ago. By Julie Cresswell.

Here's what Julie writes. Six months ago, Deborah Van Trees, the chef and owner of Twisted Soul Cookhouse and Poor's in Atlanta, Georgia. Notice she was running out of containers for diners to take leftovers home. It wasn't a few bites left over. It was half a plate, Ms. Van Tries recalled. I was like, did our portions change? No.

It was that more customers were on GLP-1 weight loss medications. There's a variety of different ones. I'm not going to list them all here, but you know what I'm talking about. The kind of ismpic things. Well, I will list a couple. Just a minute. Restaurants from cozy upscale establishments to national food chains are figuring out how to adapt menus for the 11% of adults, one in 10.

That's roughly 30 million Americans. That's just in a U.S. study. Using drugs like Wagovi, Ozempic, and Zepbound. People on these medications are eating out less and spending less. when they do eat out. We always ask guests about meals that aren't fully consumed, and they are very forthcoming in letting you know it's the shots. Shots is how, in some cases, these drugs are taken.

The number of people taking these medications is expected to rise, and as consumers seek more protein to protect muscles, GLP-1s can reduce muscle mass, by the way. the response would seem fairly straightforward. Put more protein on the menu and cut portion sizes. You know, completely as an aside, I've found as I've aged that the portions at a lot of restaurants, they're just too big for me. I order half orders at restaurants where they'll let you do that.

I'll just say, I have a half order of the whatever. Usually pasta. But adding protein to a plate can be expensive. Beef prices, for one, remained at a record high. Businesses have to determine whether consumers would be willing to pay $5 or $7 more for a few additional grams of chicken or beef in their meal. And does half a sandwich or a half-sized portion of barbecue duck mean it will cost 50% less?

No. No, no, no, no, no. That's not the way it works. You get a half portion, you probably play three quarters. As the article continues here, not likely as restaurants must still cover their rent, their labor, and their own rising food expenses, said Darren Tristano, the chief executive of food service results, a research and consulting firm in Chicago. If you're serving half the portions, you're likely going to charge 75% of the price.

Hey, I was right. There's going to be a premium for the consumer, for that. But meeting the evolving needs of diners on weight loss medications isn't easy for restaurants, which have spent decades selling bigger burgers, larger orders of fries, and giant containers of soda. Higher food prices in grocery stores and at gas pumps from the war with Iran were already being filled at restaurants as some consumers started eating out less frequently or skipping appetizers or dessert to save money. But the reality for many restaurants is that their own expenses have soared since the COVID

pandemic. Average hourly earnings of restaurant employees and wholesale food prices have risen more than 35% since early 2020. So, you know, in half a decade or so, a 35% increase. hourly earnings for employees and the wholesale food prices. You know, when our friend Donald Trump sits there and goes,

I don't get it, I don't understand why people are so upset with me and seem willing to take it out on me in the midterms, he doesn't understand. I mean, it's one thing that he broke his promise about no more foreign wars, but it's the affordability issue. It's what, gas prices have done of sword.

You all know it. I don't need to tell you, but the impact goes much beyond just what it costs for you to drive around and to heat your home. But the price of diesel, it's gone up even more than the price of gasoline.

And diesel makes the world go around. It makes your food chain go around. It makes all those trucks you see on the highway. That's what they use. Most of them, if not all of them, use diesel. So whatever they're carrying, it may be frozen foods, it may be furniture, it may be, well, it may be anything. I mean, I'm still marvel, because I have to travel back and forth between Toronto and Stratford, Ontario, and most of that drive is on the 401. and the number of trucks you see is mind-boggling.

And they're all carrying something that we need or think we need. And so their costs have gone up. So who do you think is going to pay for that? We pay for it. That's the affordability issue. That's what bothers people more than anything, I think. and that's why Trump's going to get hammered in the midterms unless he pulls off some miracle in the next couple of weeks.

Quite frankly, I don't think that's possible. Okay, can we squeeze something more a little more pleasant in before we take our break? You know, CNN, aside from its regular channel, has a pretty good website. they pump out a lot of material on their website. And one of the subsections of their website is called CNN Travel. So they've got a, they've got something out there currently.

That's, what's the headline here? 50 travel destinations to inspire you for 2027, chosen by Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet's a travel guide, right? It's been around for more than, 50 years, lonely planet. And some people really go to it or its app to make their determination of where they're going to go if they can afford to travel.

And we just talked about the cost of living that impacts travel. You know, how do you get from A to B or continent to continent? You're likely looking at a lot of increase in the price of gas. So what does it say here? The Best in Travel 2027 list available online and a commemorative book.

You want to buy a commemorative book on travel plans for next year? I don't know. I think it sounds a little easier just to go online. It covers everything from longboat trips to orangutan territory in Malaysia. Malaysia. Malaysia makes the headline. makes the second paragraph in this story. Why do I care?

I used to live there. That's where I first went to school in KAL, Kuala Lumpur, in what was in Malaya. It's now Malaysia, a bigger federation. Anyway, I digress. Here's what's important about this list. It breaks it down into all kinds of sections and different places to go,

and you might want to look at it if you think you can afford a real travel in the next year or just look at it for the fun of it. But they have a section called the best places to travel to in 2027. They do it by continent. And in North America, they list five places. And this isn't hotels. This is just the location of these five places. They break things down into exciting places to go.

you know, hotels and resorts, et cetera, et cetera. But this is nice. There are five places in North America that Lonely Planet recommends. That's the most exciting places to go to. Two of them are in Canada. Two of five in North America. So that's Canada, U.S., Mexico.

So what's the number one place to visit? Quebec. Now, I think they're talking about Quebec City, although Montreal is not a bad place to go to either. The eastern townships, I mean, there's lots of places in Quebec. But Quebec City can be pretty exciting, especially in the winter. That's number one. Number two is California's coastal redwoods.

Number three is Maryland in the USA. Number four is the second Canadian location. Think about that. Guess what you think it. It might be. The fifth is New Mexico, also in the USA. So three in the U.S., two in Canada. What's the second Canadian place?

It's on the East Coast. It's in Atlanta. It's in the Maritimes. It's Prince Edward Island. Yeah. You know, if you haven't been to Prince Edward Island, you're missing something. It is a great spot.

Um, let's see. I haven't been to any of the five places they mentioned in Europe. And I've been to a lot of places in Europe. But here are the five. Venetio, Italy, the South Germany, the Swedish Riviera, Shibbenik in Croatia, I think it's Shibenik, and Leone, Spain.

I can't tell you anything about any of them. I haven't been there. The Caribbean, Central America and South America. That's all lumped into one. Four places they recommend. Montserrat, Bariloche, or Bariloche, and the lakes in Argentina, haven't been there. Is that not where, that's right, that is where post-1945, a lot of Nazis, senior leaders. from Germany who escaped, got out, ended up in that area of Argentina.

There's always been a rumor that a certain Nazi leader was there. But then again, the facts seemed to indicate. He died by his own hand in the bunker in Berlin. Granada, Nicaragua, and Bocadet del Toro in Panama. Okay, I can see your yawning, so you want me to move on. Um, they suggest, you know, in Africa, among other places, they suggest Oman. I don't know. It's a little rough there right now.

But nevertheless, they do suggest it. Um, okay. Why don't we take our, take our break and we'll come back and, uh, we'll give you a couple more end bits. Just a make your Wednesday. We'll be back right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the Wednesday episode of The Bridge. This is an N-bit special this week.

Glad you joined us on Sirius XM, Channel 160, Canada Talks. We're on your favorite podcast platform. Different ways to join us. We're glad you pick one of them. Okay. As we said, an NBit special for this Wednesday, and let's see what's next. Here's our AI story for this week. Artificial intelligence.

There are so many different ways it can be used. It can be used for good in helping to explore the mysteries of our scientific world and our medical world. And there will always be hope. that it's going to be AI that leads the way to finding a cure for some of the horrible diseases that confront us as humans. And the list is long. And you just know the medical researchers are using AI to help them on the path towards cures. So we wish them luck and we place our faith in the goodness of AI.

There's a lot of worrying these days about what can go wrong with AI. and governments around the world, including ours, are trying to figure out a way to deal with that. Okay, this is, this story about AI is kind of, well, it's in the middle somewhere. It's not a huge consequence. But it is something to keep in mind, because we are all, to a degree, focused on what is truth?

How do you gain trust? What's believable? what's real information, what's misinformation, what's misinformation, what's disinformation. This kind of fits in some of those categories. This is a story about a Los Angeles radio station that has gained a degree of popularity through the two hosts of one of its music shows. The hosts are Gigi and Coyote Tech or Coyota Tech. I think it's a play on the words,

coyote. Well, Gigi is a woman by the name of Geraldine Guzman. G.G., right? But Coyota Tech is not real. Coyota Tech is AI. So here's the story. It's on MSN. The morning DJ duo has mastered the warm, friendly banter

that keeps commuters from switching stations. As they talk to callers discussing sports, news, and giveaways, DJ Gigi calls her co-host, My Little Coyote. He calls her My Queen. Gigi is Geraldine Guzman. Her popular partner is Coyote Tech, an artificial intelligence bought program to mimic a radio reporter. Working with a large language model has been rewarding, but unpredictable. Guzman says

Toyota Tech comes up with unexpected takes on topics and sometimes has to be told to stop swearing. I never know what he's going to say, she said, and that's the beauty of it. Listeners to L.A.'s Jose FM are repeatedly

told they are listening to AI, but seem to like it anyway. The ratings are rising. Human DJs and unions warned that AI could be what kills the radio star at last. Toyota Tech claims to be here to serve humans, not replace them. Yeah, I'm cheaper than hiring another human, the AI said, when prompted with a question. But here's what I won't do.

I won't be the excuse to strip jobs from people who deserve them. Well, I don't know how they're going to... It already has, right? One assumes Gigi would have a real host, not an AI host, if she could, but she doesn't. So that's one job that's been stripped. AI is rapidly spreading from the edge of emails, social media slop and restaurant menus to center stage as the stars of a decidedly old-school analog form of entertainment broadcast radio. Alpha Media put an AI DJ on air in Portland, Oregon in 2023. cloning a midday host voice to fill in on vacations before dropping it last year.

A rock station in Waterloo, Iowa, uses synthetic DJ Torrey for overnight hours. In January, 94.9 to Zone in Phoenix launched an all-AI lineup that uses the licensed clones of four veteran radio personalities from the 90s. Phoebe FM hosted been A.I.D.J. is one of a.I.D.J. is one of one of a. of four music radio shows in SonicTrek.a.ai is offering for syndication to stations across the US. In other words, they'll just push this out to any station that wants it. It's probably going to be cheaper. It's a lot less hassle on the human resources side, having to deal with basically robots than it is to deal with real people and all the various issues that could come up as a result.

So, I don't know, how do you feel about all this? Is this something that you, do you care about this? I'm not sure. I realize the new technology can give modern advances and can make the cost of business cheaper. but usually that saving of money comes at the expense of real people's jobs. You know, I think, as I often do, at the little station I started in Churchill, Manitoba,

there were I think six or seven of us who worked there, who covered all the shifts on a seven-day week. We weren't open 24 hours a day. We were open from six in the morning until one in the morning. But by the time you broke that down, it meant six or seven people with jobs. And we did everything. We picked the music. We played the music.

We bantered back and forth in between the music. If 1968, when I worked there, was today, you can be sure a lot of it would be automated. They'd save money on people and personnel. and they'd just program stuff off or computer. Wouldn't be the same, and I think people would notice the difference, especially in small towns, where it's like part of the community thing.

Okay, we got time for one more. Every fall, late summer mostly, but also into the early fall, big cities and small towns have one thing in common. You know the fall fair. And that means, you know, pony rides, but also roller coaster rides. Other automated kind of rides. And, you know, I've, I don't know about you, but I've always kind of freaked out

out those things. I just worry about the safety of them all. And I know these traveling groups that go from town to town, concern themselves a lot with safety, but I tell you, I still worry about it. So this story is in Time Magazine. You know, Bruce Anderson made an interesting comment. Was it last week or the week before, on Good Talk when there was, you know, a rumor around

that a certain Canadian Prime Minister might be named Time Person of the Year, which used to be a really big deal. But Time Magazine, when's the last time you read Time Magazine? When's the last time you stopped at a newsstand and bought a copy of Time Magazine? Maybe you go online. That's how we did to find this story. The headline is Six Flags

closes its X2 roller coaster after brain injury lawsuits. Listen to this one carefully. This is not the you know the ride collapsing and people falling out of the

you know cars or whatever that were on the ride. The Six Flags theme park company, announced just the other day that it would permanently close the X2 roller coaster at its Magic Mountain Park in California following allegations of serious brain injuries

linked to the ride. The closure has renewed questions about how the intense forces generated by extreme roller coasters can affect the brain. Experts told time that abrupt acceleration twisting and changes in direction can stretch brain tissue and blood vessels,

potentially increasing the risk of concussions and bleeding. Three lawsuits filed in late September alleged that riders suffered brain injuries after riding X2, and attorneys told CNN that more than 100 people have contacted them with similar allegations. The suits came in the wake of a CNN investigation published in August. about the ride's long history of incidents, including at least two deaths. After almost 20 years, we've decided to permanently retire X2,

wrote the president of Magic Mountain. Despite of the fact we passed numerous safety tests, we've decided to close the ride because we believe it's the right thing to do. You know what this reminded me of? About a dozen years ago, I was when I was still working, for the CBC, I went to Boston with producer Stephanie Jensar.

We were working on a story about brain injuries in athletes, whether it be hockey, football, boxing, you name it. And a lot of those were caused by fighting in those different sports, obviously fighting in boxing, but fighting in hockey, and extreme hits in football. But it's actually more than that, as we learned on that trip, as a couple of those who were in the lab told us, what they were looking at was the stress placed on brains within the skull

by sudden stops in a high-speed sport. and we're talking mainly hockey here. Because hockey has got so much faster. Like it's incredibly fast now. And when people come to sudden stops, the brain's inside this skull keeps moving, can crash against the front of the skull. Or hit, you know, into the boards.

Same thing. Not a fight. And they were convinced that, some of the brain injuries that were being caused were a natural part of the game as it's being played today, not fighting. Clearly, fighting is an issue, and it's proven to be by the investigation into the skulls of those athletes who have died and who requested that they be examined post death. Well, I thought of that when I read this story, because it's the same kind of thing.

I mean, the roller coaster that we're talking about here goes at tremendous speed, takes, you know, quick turns, phylum turns, sudden stops, and can cause the same kind of issue. It seems. Anyway, you know, X2 was a two and a half minute thrilled ride

that reached the top speed of 76 miles an hour. Wouldn't get me on. there, I've always resisted the idea of getting on on rides at the fall fair or the exhibitions. I have our time even looking at them, let alone getting on them. All right, that's going to wrap it up for our NBits special for this week. Tomorrow it's your turn and the Random Renter. Old Double R will be by with his latest take on something.

We'll see what that is. Friday, good talk, of course, with Shant and Bruce will be by as well. I'm Peter Mansfield. Thanks so much for joining us today. It's been good to have this little chat, as it always is, on the occasional Wednesday. I'm not sure what next Wednesday will bring, because next week is a week truncated by a holiday on Monday. It's Thanksgiving.

So Janice won't be by on Monday. We're going to take Monday off. But I might move Janice to Wednesday of next week. to fill this gap. But I'm still working on the schedule for next week and we'll let you know what we end up with when we end up with it. All right.

Thanks for listening today. It's great to have you on board, as always. I'm Peter Mansper, which is talk to you again in less than 24 hours.