Making National News

Making Headlines Faculty members at the Feinberg School of Medicine and their colleagues in the life sciences at Northwestern University frequently are quoted or featured in national and/or international news stories. Here is a selection of recent media coverage. Links to the original stories are provided but please note that you may be required to register with the news organization to access them and that they may be expired.

Blood Sugar Loss May Trigger Alzheimer’s: Study
Reuters December 24, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE4BN3MF20081224?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

A slow, chronic reduction of blood sugar to the brain could trigger some forms of Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The study of human and mice brains suggests a reduction of blood flow deprives energy to the brain, setting off a process that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein researchers believe is a cause of the disease, they said.

The finding could lead to strategies such as exercise, reducing cholesterol and managing blood pressure to keep Alzheimer’s at bay, Robert Vassar and colleagues at NORTHWESTERN University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago reported.

“This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s,” Vassar, who led the study, said in a statement.-“If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet.”…

The story was also carried in the following news outlets:

Boosting Blood Flow May Fight Alzheimer’s
United Press International December 24, 2008
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/12/24/Boosting_blood_flow_may_fight_Alzheimers/UPI-52731230152845/

What Provokes Alzheimer’s?
Agence France-Presse December 25, 2008
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_Top%20Stories&set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20081225153028458C298538

Boosting Blood Flow May Fight Alzheimer’s
United Press International December 24, 2008
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/12/24/Boosting_blood_flow_may_fight_Alzheimers/UPI-52731230152845/

Blood Sugar Loss May Trigger Alzheimer’s
NBC “Today” December 24, 2008
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/28380970/

Slow Starvation of Brain Triggers Alzheimer’s
Yahoo! News December 24, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081224/sc_livescience/slowstarvationofbraintriggersalzheimers;_ylt=A0wNcxKw8FRJY1EB6QwPLBIF

Blood Flow to Brain May Affect Alzheimer’s Risk
ABC7 (WLS-TV) December 24, 2008
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/health&id=6572215

WJW-TV (Cleveland), KWGN-TV (Denver), KMPH-TV (Fresno), WOGX-TV (Gainesville), WGFL-TV (WGFL-TV (Gainesville), WOFL-TV (Orlando), KSEV-AM (Houston), WDIV-TV (Detroit), KMSP-TV (Minneapolis), KXRM- TV (Colorado Springs), WHBQ-TV (Memphis), WJBK-TV (Detroit), KRQE-TV (Albuquerque), Dec. 24.
Reference to research by Robert Vassar, professor of cell and molecular biology, on Alzheimer’s disease.

Getting Enough Sleep? Consider Your Heart
On Medicine (U.S. News & World Report blog) December 23, 2008
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-medicine/2008/12/23/getting-enough-sleep-consider-your-heart.html

As a 30-something, I hereby resolve to sleep more in 2009. And published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association is a well-timed finding to motivate my New Year’s resolution: Longer sleep duration for people in their 30s and 40s may decrease the risk of coronary artery calcification, a predictor of atherosclerosis and heart disease….

…Donald Lloyd-Jones, associate professor of preventive medicine at NORTHWESTERN University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and first author on the AHA report, admonishes us premiddle-agers, “If you make it to middle-age, say 50, with a really low risk factor burden, you live healthier longer and you have an almost negligible risk of developing cardiovascular disease and cancer.”

The way this often plays out for those who achieve this goal, he explains, is they don’t get sick until the very end of life. I’d personally prefer to go out with as little illness and suffering as possible.

And what are the elements of a “really low risk factor burden”? Good numbers: for cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and weight. In fact, where we tip the scales seems to tie it all together, says Lloyd-Jones. “Most people put on one pound per year after age 25, but it’s not risk-free,” he says. “That gain is what drives up blood pressure, worsens lipids, and makes us susceptible to diabetes.”…

HIV Can Penetrate a Woman’s Healthy Genital Skin
U.S. News and World Report December 16, 2008
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/12/16/hiv-can-penetrate-a-womans-healthy-genital-skin.html

A new route of male-to-female transmission of HIV—in which the virus can travel through healthy genital skin to reach immune cells in just four hours—has been identified by U.S. researchers.

It’s long been believed that the normal lining of the vaginal tract was an effective barrier to HIV during sexual intercourse, because the large HIV virus couldn’t penetrate the tissue. But the NORTHWESTERN University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers found that HIV can penetrate normal, healthy genital tissue to a depth where it can get to immune cells and infect them.

The researchers labeled HIV viruses with photo-activated fluorescent tags and were able to track the viruses as they penetrated the outermost lining of the female genital tract (the squamous epithelium) in female human tissue obtained through hysterectomy and in animal models.

The findings were expected to be presented Dec. 16 at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting, in San Francisco.-“This is an unexpected and important result. We have a new understanding of how HIV can invade the female genital tract,” principal investigator Thomas Hope, a professor of cell and molecular biology, said in a university news release…

This story was also carried in the following news outlets:

HIV Can Penetrate a Woman’s Healthy Genital Skin
Washington Post December 16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/16/AR2008121600753.html

HIV Infects Women Through Healthy Tissue—U.S. Study
Reuters December 16, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSN16285055._CH_.2400

Why Condoms Matter: New Findings Re HIV Transmission
Chicago Tribune December 16, 2008
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/12/why-condoms-mat.html

Mucosal Lining of the Female Genital Tract No Barrier to HIV Sexual Transmission
News-Medical.Net December 16, 2008
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=44298

WPVI-TV (Philadelphia) Dec. 17 Reference to research by Thomas Hope, professor of cell and molecular biology, on how the AIDS virus is spread in women. Also in Yahoo News, ABS-CBN News.

U.S. Stroke, Heart Disease Death Rates Down Sharply
Reuters December 15, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4BE6FU20081215

The U.S. death rates from heart disease and stroke have fallen by about 30 percent this decade but there are ominous signs that the worrisome obesity epidemic could snuff out the progress, experts said on Monday.

Better control of cholesterol and blood pressure, declining smoking rates and better medical treatments all contributed to the dropping death rates from heart disease, which remains the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, the American Heart Association said in a report…

“We are continuing to see really nice and dramatic reductions in cardiovascular and stroke death rates,” Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones of NORTHWESTERN University in Illinois, who led the report published in the journal Circulation.-If the death rates in 2006 had been at their 1999 levels, there would have been 190,000 more heart disease and stroke deaths that year, Lloyd-Jones added…

This story was also carried in the following news outlets:

Deaths from Strokes, Heart Attacks Decline
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (also in the Hartford Currant) December 15, 2008
http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/36186309.html

Ban on Long-acting Medications Could Set Back Patients, Asthma Doctors Say
Associated Press December 10, 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/sns-ap-asthma-drugs,0,3373878.story

In recent years, millions of asthma patients have started using long-acting drugs to help them breathe more normally, allowing for nights of uninterrupted sleep or workouts at the gym.

Now the Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether the medications, in rare cases, can increase the risk of serious asthma complications, the kinds that send patients to the emergency room gasping for air. At a two-day meeting that begins Wednesday, independent medical advisers will hear the scientific evidence and make recommendations on whether the drugs should continue to be used to treat asthma…

The companies that make the medications say they are safe, and that at least some of the medical evidence that has raised questions from the FDA is of poor quality. Doctors who treat asthma patients are worried that the drugs could be banned.

“We would lose a medicine that patients find helpful,” said Dr. Paul Greenberger of NORTHWESTERN University in Chicago, president-elect of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. “We would be going backward, and the consequences of that would be more untoward effects of asthma. That’s a major deal, because asthma hospitalizations continue to be too high.”…

Patient Photos Aid Docs Reading Faceless CT Scans
Associated Press December 2, 2008
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MED_PATIENTS_FACES?SITE=MALOW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Imagine sitting in a dark room all day, evaluating CT scans and other medical images on a computer screen but never actually seeing real patients. That’s life for many radiologists.-But an intriguing Israeli study found adding photos of patients’ faces to the file made these doctors more meticulous when looking at the X-rays. They reported more details and said they felt more empathy for patients who were otherwise strangers…

Dr. Joan Anzia, a NORTHWESTERN Memorial Hospital psychiatrist, said adding photos is “simple and ingenious.”

“Feeling more connected with the patient and actually working a little harder totally makes sense from what we understand about the way the brain works in terms of facial recognition and attachment,” Anzia said.

From early infancy, she explained, the brain is programmed to respond to faces, and that response is the beginning of an emotional attachment…

Doctors Scramble to Switch Holdouts to Eco-friendly Asthma Inhalers by Dec. 31
Associated Press December 1, 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/sns-ap-med-healthbeat-green-inhalers,0,900630.story

Last warning: Asthma inhalers go “green” on Dec. 31, forcing patients still using the old-fashioned kind to make a pricey and even confusing switch. The medicine inside these rescue inhalers, the albuterol that quickly opens airways during an asthma attack, isn’t changing. But the chemicals used to puff that drug into your lungs are.

No more chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that damage Earth’s protective ozone layer. By year’s end, all albuterol inhalers must be powered by the more eco-friendly chemical HFA, or hydrofluoroalkane…

Albuterol inhalers are for emergencies, for quick relief of wheezing. Patients also need daily medication to control their asthma and prevent flare-ups. Someone who’s using the albuterol inhaler more than a few times a month isn’t well-controlled, and his or her doctor needs to determine why, stresses Dr. Paul Greenberger of NORTHWESTERN University, president-elect of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Here’s the rub: Recent research suggests only one in five children has their asthma under good control; no one knows how many adults do…

Obesity Center Opens at Northwestern
Associated Press November 28, 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-obesitycenter,0,3786356.story

A center addressing obesity has opened at NORTHWESTERN University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

It’s called the NORTHWESTERN Comprehensive Center on Obesity and focuses on education, treatment and research.-The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than one-third of U.S. adults are obese.

Obesity has been linked to diabetes, high blood pressure and several types of cancer.

Dr. Lewis Landsberg is the founder and director of the center. He says obesity is the major epidemic of our time…

This story was also carried in the following news outlets:

Holiday Weight Gain, AIDS Prevention and Rising Health Costs
New York Times November 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/health/28rounds.html?_r=2

UPI November 28, 2008
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/11/28/UPI_NewsTrack_Health_and_Science_News/UPI-1201227912240/

New Center to Tackle Obesity Epidemic
Chicago Tribune November 28, 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/health/chi-obesity-centernov28,0,3499140.story

Fooling Immune Systems to Fight Diabetes
UPI November 20, 2008
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2008/11/20/Fooling_immune_systems_to_fight_diabetes/UPI-45071227233216/

Doctors have tricked mouse immune systems into “thinking” cells from a donor pancreas are theirs, bringing hope to diabetes patients, U.S. researchers said.

The new technique, to fight type 1 diabetes, eliminated the need for drugs that inhibit immune-system activity in diabetic mice that had insulin-producing islet cell transplantation, NORTHWESTERN University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers said.

Immunosuppressive drugs prevent bodies from rejecting the islet cells, but they’re toxic to the new cells and put patients at risk for infections and cancer, doctors say.

But with the new technique, “we made the recipient feel that the donor cells are their own,” microbiology-immunology professor Stephen Miller said…