Media Coverage
The work done by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine faculty members (and even some students) is regularly highlighted in newspapers, online media outlets and more. Below you’ll find links to articles and videos of Feinberg in the news.
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US News & World Report
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Diabetes & Kidney Trouble Can Bring Heart Disease Decades Earlier
People with both type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease face a heart health double-whammy, a new study says. Men with both diabetes and kidney disease will develop heart health problems 28 years earlier than those without either condition, researchers reported today at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago. Women with diabetes and kidney disease will develop heart problems 26 years earlier, results show. “Our findings help to interpret the combination of risk factors that will lead to a high predicted cardiovascular disease risk and at what age they have an impact on risk,” lead study author Vaishnavi Krishnan, a researcher at Northwestern University in Chicago and a medical student at Boston University School of Medicine, said in a news release. “For example, if someone has borderline-elevated levels of blood pressure, glucose and/or impaired kidney function, but they don’t yet have hypertension or diabetes or chronic kidney disease, their risk may not be recognized,” Krishan said. “This is an early step in the process of understanding how a risk model works,” researcher Sadiya Khan, MD, MSc said in a news release. Khan is a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology and an associate professor of cardiology, medical social sciences and preventive medicine at Northwestern School of Medicine.
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Yahoo! News
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This 1 Fitness Test Can Determine Your Fall Risk
Getting older can be tough for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the increased risk of falling and hurting yourself. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 14 million older adults fall every year, and falls are the top cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries in this age group. It’s hard to know if you’re at risk of suffering from a fall. However, a recent study led by researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that one fitness test can help determine your fall risk: the ability to stand on one leg. Researchers looked at various balance studies and discovered that testing the balance on the nondominant leg was the best way to measure age-related neuromuscular decline, according to Jeevan Abraham, a sports medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago who was not affiliated with the study. One way to help with improving balance is to avoid sitting for long periods of time. So instead of sitting at your computer for hours on end, get up from time to time, even if it’s just to get a glass of water or walk over to pet your dog. “And then try to instill daily habits such as using stairs when possible [and a] daily walking routine because these little things really do add up,” Abraham said. “Neglecting those things is what I think leads to certain people losing their abilities of balance and strength.” Additionally, every decade starting at 30, folks lose 8% of their muscle mass, Abraham said. This makes it crucial to build your strength as you age, too, something he explained can be done through resistance training.
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New York Times
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8 Factors That Can Raise Your Heart Disease Risk
Heart disease is the leading killer of men and women in America — and it has been for more than 100 years, despite major gains in public health. For years, doctors have known that high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and smoking raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, in recent years, experts have started thinking more broadly about what drives cardiovascular disease risk. With smoking on the decline, and with better cholesterol and blood pressure treatments now available, death rates from heart attack and stroke have fallen in the last half-century, said Sadiya Khan, MD, MSc, a preventive cardiologist at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. But several factors now threaten to slow — or even undo — that progress, including the rise of metabolic conditions like obesity and diabetes and increasing rates of heart failure. The big risk factors remain the same: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, age, smoking and sex, as men are generally considered to be at greater risk. Black Americans are at a greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than white Americans. On average, they develop high blood pressure and diabetes four to six years earlier than their white peers, Dr. Khan said, and they also have higher rates of advanced kidney disease.
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NBC 5 Chicago
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Expert offers tips on combating post-election stress
Though the 2024 presidential election may be over, many woke up Wednesday with continued stress that is likely felt by many no matter who they cast their ballots for. This year’s election left voters of both major political parties feeling stressed out, with the American Psychological Association reporting that nearly 70% of Americans said it was a significant source of stress in their lives. “It’s good to take a break from media and social media, because there’s going to be a lot of content that is just going to stir people up. A lot of people engage in this doom-scrolling where they’re just spending hours and hours, and it’s really kind of counterproductive,” Michael Ziffra, MD associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said. “I think a good rule of thumb is to always try to not talk about politics if possible. I know it’s not always easy, but often that’s the best approach, you know, and so you and your family may want to have some sort of agreement beforehand, like, hey, let’s not talk about politics,” he said. Ziffra added that exercise, walks outside, conversations with supportive friends and sleep were key to managing post-election stress. He also recommends staving off excessive caffeine and alcohol intake, and taking a break from social media.
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Fox News
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Why the end of daylight saving time can negatively affect your health
Although the day the clocks “fall back” gives you an extra hour of sleep before your alarm goes off, the end of daylight saving time in November has multiple health implications. Many people have a difficult time adjusting since their internal clock has been altered. “Just that one hour can change the amount of sleep you get, the quality of sleep that you get,” said Phyllis Zee, MD, PhD, a sleep researcher at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, per The Associated Press. Many people, especially those with preexisting conditions, can experience darker moods following the clock change and through the fall and winter months. There are a few different theories for why this happens. One is the body’s circadian rhythm, its internal clock, is disrupted when the days are shorter with less access to the sun, which can cause a mood swing. Turning the clocks back an hour marks a time when the dark winter is coming. The lack of serotonin the body receives during this time of year can also contribute to a worsening mood. One thing you can do is keep your same bedtime. Don’t use the hour of extra sleep as an excuse to stay up late the prior day. No matter the time of year, but especially in the colder months, it’s wise to establish a good sleep routine.
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Fox 32 Chicago
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What is neurodivergence? Gus Walz brings condition into spotlight after viral Chicago DNC moment
Guz Walz, son of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, drew attention to neurodivergence after showing support for his father at the DNC. His parents recently shared that Gus has a nonverbal learning disorder, which is one form of neurodivergence. “When some people hear the term, I think they often think about how individuals may be impacted by neurodivergence to a greater degree. There’s a lot of people who almost have invisible disabilities, that have neurodivergence that you may not know when you meet them, day to day, but have other kinds of struggles they are working on with therapists or support they might need in school,” said Rachel Follmer, MD, attending physician in Developmental Pediatrics at Lurie Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics (developmental behavioral pediatrics) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Autism and ADHD are among some of the bigger reasons why someone is considered neurodivergent. A nonverbal learning disorder, or NVLD, is another one, and don’t let the name fool you. “The tricky part about that is when people hear nonverbal, they often think someone isn’t talking and the opposite is actually true with that,” Follmer said. “This is something that early on is often difficult to see in younger children. It tends to become more apparent as kids get older because these patterns become more important and more nuanced in your ability to take that early learning skills and apply them as you get into the middle school age range,” Follmer said. If you think your child may be neurodivergent, the panel says the first step is to talk with your pediatrician to get qualified referrals to mental health professionals.
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USA Today
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James Van Der Beek, Jenna Fischer and the rise of young people getting cancer
There’s no exact cause known for the rise in cancers among young people, according to experts, but researchers are trying to figure it out. The best bet for a health-conscious person is fine-tuning diet and exercise routines, staying up-to-date on screenings, listening to your body and going to regular doctor’s appointments. A leading theory behind this incidence uptick is all the changes to our microbiome over time – the environment, air, water, etc. “A lot of folks suspect that there’s early life exposures that may have something to do with either our water supply or our food supply,” says Mohamed Abazeed, , co-leader of the Lung Cancer Program in the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern University. Abazeed adds: “When you change somebody’s diet dramatically, or you change the population’s diet dramatically in such a short period of time, we haven’t yet adapted to that, and the way our body reacts to that is by mounting an inflammatory response.” The short of it: If you experience dietary or weight changes or a shift in bowel habits that lasts for weeks? Go to the doctor.
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WBEZ Chicago
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Access to IVF in Illinois is unequal. A ballot referendum could help change that.
Voters across Illinois are being asked this election season to weigh in with their ballots on reproductive rights. The question: “Should all medically appropriate assisted reproductive treatments, including, but not limited to, in vitro fertilization, be covered by any health insurance plan in Illinois that provides coverage for pregnancy benefits, without limitation on the number of treatments?” The lack of IVF coverage in Medicaid plans is common across the U.S., but it creates a big barrier to access for people who can least afford to pay, said Katie Watson, JD, a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who specializes in reproductive rights. “It is a violation of reproductive justice, the right to have a child, to allow medical treatments to be divvied up based on income,” Watson said. Lindsay Allen, PhD, a health economist at Northwestern, said she’s not surprised by WBEZ’s findings. A majority of people who have Medicaid in Illinois are either Black or Latino, groups reporting some of the lowest rates of fertility treatments, WBEZ found. Accessing fertility treatments like IVF isn’t just about having health insurance cover the cost, Allen said. It’s also about how easily patients can get to a provider depending on where they live, or if they have a flexible job that allows them to leave work to race to a doctor’s visit. “IVF is such a complicated process, and it requires an awful lot of self-advocacy on the part of the patient,” Allen said.
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CNN
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Life with narcolepsy: ‘It’s not a joke, it’s a very serious illness’
Matthew Horsnell began falling asleep for no reason when he was in sixth grade. By age 20, Horsnell began losing control of his body for brief periods when he felt a strong emotion, falling or slumping to the ground conscious but paralyzed — a condition called cataplexy. Horsnell has narcolepsy, a sleep disorder that makes it hard to stay awake for long periods. Not only will a person fall asleep repeatedly during the day, but they will have extremely disrupted sleep at night, said Jennifer Mundt, PhD, assistant professor of sleep medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Narcolepsy is estimated to affect one in 2,000 people in the United States and some 3 million worldwide, according to the Narcolepsy Network, a non-profit patient advocacy group. However, that estimate is likely low due to difficulties with obtaining a proper diagnosis, said Mundt, who treats patients with narcolepsy and conducts research on the condition. In fact, it’s estimated that only 25% of people who have narcolepsy are diagnosed and receive treatment, according to the Narcolepsy Network. “On average, it takes 10 or more years to get diagnosed, so we know there’s a lot of people out there who may have it and are going untreated,” Mundt said. “Many people are never seen by a sleep specialist, who is one of the few physicians trained to recognize the symptoms.”
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Chicago Magazine
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The New Science of Aging Backward
John Wilkins, MD, clinical director at the institute’s Human Longevity Laboratory, puts it like this: “When you ask how old someone is, you may be asking how long they’ve been alive, but you’re also implicitly asking how much time they probably have left.” Chronological age can’t tell you that, but biological age can. Douglas Vaughan, MD has been the director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute since it was founded in 2022. “For just about every disease you can think of, age is the most important risk factor,” he says. “The point I’m making is that sometimes people focus so much on the body, but they forget that our brain is attached to everything in our body. Things like stress, loneliness, isolation, and adversity all have an effect.” Exactly how these factors affect us, and in what ways we can alter their impact, is what Wilkins and his colleagues at the Human Longevity Lab hope to discover.
