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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Retuers
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Fact Check – Vitamin D is not ‘the most effective medicine against cancer’
There is no evidence to support claims recently made online that vitamin D is “the most effective medicine against cancer” or that taking the vitamin prevents cancer or lowers the odds of dying from the disease, according to scientific analyses. A recent tweet claims, without citing any evidence that Vitamin D is “the single most effective medicine against cancer, far outpacing the benefits of any cancer drug known to modern science.” However, a 2022 evidence review by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, found that taking Vitamin D has no effect on cancer incidence or deaths in the general population. Jeffrey Linder, chief of general internal medicine and professor of general internal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who co-wrote an editorial accompanying the study, told Reuter’s Fact Check that “those who have low vitamin D levels have other factors that lead them to a higher risk for cancer,”. He added, “It’s never been shown, among healthy adults, that supplementation with vitamin D reduces the risk of cancer.”
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WebMD
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Reddit Leads the Way for STD Information Seeking
Where do teens and young adults go to talk about sex, sexual health and sexually transmitted diseases? The obvious – routine medical checkups, hanging out with friends or partners – are becoming less common than social media platforms for information and advice. For patients and doctors, it’s a win-win situation, one that provides a chance to address and prevent the spread of STD misinformation and, at the same time, help to reverse skyrocketing rates of some of these infections in younger people. However, Reddit AMAs don’t come without risk, and it’s best for those who want STD information to be aware of the pitfalls and red flags. “One of the things to think about is than an approach like the subreddit adds to the false narrative that STDs in particular have to be symptomatic to be problematic, which we know is not the case,” explains Dennis Li, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and sexual and gender minority health and well-being at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We also have to be careful not to misdiagnose and potentially cause harm,” he says, emphasizing that many young people – especially those with equity issues – don’t have experience in navigating health systems or reputable websites for information.
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US News & World Report
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How to Become a Fertility Specialist
When individuals or couples struggle with infertility or hope to extend their timeline for bringing children into the world, fertility specialist physicians can provide assistance. An aspiring reproductive medicine physician needs to obtain bachelor’s and medical degrees. Medical school graduates should complete residencies in obstetrics and gynecology if they intend to focus on female fertility, and in urology if their goal is to concentrate on male fertility. Many OB-GYN and urology residencies now include training in transgender medicine. Some significant questions about the human body and public health are directly related to fertility medicine, says Eve C. Feinberg, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of the reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. According to Feinberg, the most fascinating puzzles in fertility medicine surround how to extend the biological clocks of women, what the potential environment and nutritional causes of fertility disorders are, why IVF sometimes fails and whether there is an upper age limit beyond which it is inadvisable for men to conceive children.
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US News & World Report
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‘I’m Not the Doctor for You’: Disabled Americans Face Discrimination Seeking Care
Over 30 years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), some doctors harbor biases toward people with disabilities, and even actively avoid accepting them as patients, a new study finds. In focus group discussions with about two dozen U.S. doctors, researchers found that many said they lacked the knowledge and skill to care for patients with disabilities. Even basic physical accommodations, like accessible buildings and medical equipment, were an issue. “This is a systems problem,” said Tara Lagu, MD, MPH, the lead researcher on the work, director of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) and professor of hospital medicine and medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. For one thing, medical school and post-graduate training do not prepare doctors for meeting the needs of patients with disabilities, said Lagu. Another problem she shared, is insurance reimbursement, which does not factor in the longer appointments that are often necessary for patients with more complex needs. Doctors in the focus group called it “unreasonable” and “ridiculous” to expect the standard 15-minute appointment to be long enough for patients with disabilities. They also complained about financial barriers to providing proper equipment or other services. One primary care doctor described hiring a service to do sign language interpretation, but found that the practice lost money on every appointment where the service was used. A huge swath of the population has some form of disability, Lagu noted, and yet it’s a group that is left out of the discussion on healthcare disparities. “That’s just not acceptable,” she said.
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US News & World Report
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Brain Secrets of the Super-Sharp ‘Super-Agers’
Researchers have discovered another clue as to how some older people stay sharp as a tack into their 80s and beyond: Their brain cells are really big. The researchers found that in a memory-related area of the brain, super-agers had larger neurons than elderly adults with average brain power – and even in comparison to people thirty years younger. What’s more, those big brain cells were relatively free of “tau tangles,” one of the key markers of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at Northwestern University have been studying super-agers for years. In previous work the investigators found that those unusually sharp seniors are similar to their cognitively average peers when it comes to amyloid plaques: Both groups have comparable amounts in their brains. Where they differ is in tau buildup. Super-agers have far fewer tau tangles in a memory-related area of the brain called the entorhinal cortex. “The study of super-aging establishes that dementia is not inevitable – that withstanding ‘abnormal aging’ is possible,” said lead researcher Tamar Gefen, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. It also highlights the link between tau accumulation and the dementia process, Gefen said. Historically, amyloid plaques have gotten most of the attention, she noted – with drug development mainly aimed at reducing amyloid plaques in the brain. Now, Gefen said, “it’s generally accepted among the scientific community that amyloid is not the only culprit. There are several targets, amyloid and tau included, that need to be considered in the fight against Alzheimer’s pathology.”
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Good Morning America
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The latest advancement in the fight against breast cancer
Ami Shah, MD, oncologist at Lurie Cancer Center and assistant professor of hematology and oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, was featured on Good Morning America. During the pandemic, 47% of women delayed their mammograms and now are being treated for later stage of disease. There have also been advancements in the treatment of breast cancer. For triple negative breast cancer, immune therapy has been an exciting development that better recognizes cancer cells. The development of drugs called antibody drug conjugates, they take chemotherapy and connect to an antibody. These antibodies work to deliver the chemotherapy to cancer cells without delivering it to healthy cells, thus potentially reducing side effects. According to Shah, “One in eight women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in their lifetime, so it’s important that everybody, including those with average risk, get regular screening mammograms.”
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US News & World Report
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AHA News: After a Jump in Maternal Mortality for Hispanic Women, a Search for Answers
The COVID-19 pandemic produced no shortage of somber statistics. But for people who care about women’s health, one number about Hispanic women stood out. Their mortality rate jumped sharply in 2020 – up 44% from the year before, according to the data from the CDC. For every 100,000 births, there were 18.2 deaths among Hispanic women, up from 12.6 in 2019. Risk was highest among women 40 and older. Dr. Sadiya Khan, assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said it was too early to know what was behind the increase. But Khan, who has written or co-written several studies related to pregnancy and heart health, likened the general health inequities that existed before 2020 to firewood. “And the pandemic sparked it.” Khan said that also applies to Black women, who have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States. She emphasized the idea of a “zero trimester,” or optimizing a woman’s health before she is pregnant. “One of the most critical periods where intervention is needed and can have the greatest impact is pre-pregnancy, but is often limited due to fragmented health insurance or limited health care access,” Khan said.
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New York Times
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Why It’s Important to Know if You Have Dense Breasts
On Wednesday, Katie Couric revealed she had breast cancer. She also noted that she had dense breasts – a common classification that can increase the risk of developing the disease. Density isn’t related to breast size or firmness, said Dr. Sarah Friedewald, chief of breast imaging and associate professor of radiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. It is a measure of how much fibrous and glandular tissue is in your breasts compared with the amount of fatty issue, as viewed on a mammogram These tissues include the glands that create milk, the tubes that ferry milk to the nipples and the fibrous tissue that binds them together. Every mammogram report includes an assessment of a woman’s breast density, which falls into one of four categories: almost entirely fatty; some areas of scattered density; evenly dense; or extremely dense. Scientists aren’t entirely sure why dense breasts increase the risk for cancer, Dr. Friedewald said, but the thick tissues make mammogram detection for calcifications and tumors more difficult. “Breast density in and of itself is not a huge risk factor,” Dr. Friedewald said. Dense breasts can make it more difficult for doctors to evaluate a mammogram, and so they may require additional imaging.
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Chicago Tribune
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Jami Josefson: After a pandemic boom in child obesity, it’s time for families to recommit to health
Many families are still grappling with the secondary physical and psychosocial health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic – including an alarming surge in obesity and Type 2 diabetes among children. In a recent study, diagnoses of Type 2 diabetes at Lurie Children’s Hospital increased nearly 300% from the pre-pandemic annual mean. Black and Hispanic children represented the majority of the diagnoses, which likely reflects the persistent social inequities in access to healthy food and other resources. Jami Josefson, MD, MS, associate professor of pediatrics, continues in her piece, “What’s most scary is the rapid progression for children, which can lead to organ diseases such as kidney failure and heart disease and will affect the mortality rate. Put in simple terms, prevention really is a matter of life or death.” The good news is that kids are back in school, which means more access to healthy food and more physical activity and socializing with their friends. We can all do something to help prevent child obesity and metabolic disease. If you’re someone with the means to help, you could donate or volunteer at one of the many Chicago nonprofits that provide food or youth activities for lower-income families.
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Chicago Tribune
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Transgender young people feel less distress after gender-confirming surgery, Northwestern study says
Transgender and nonbinary teens and young adults – who experience anxiety and depression at higher rates than others – often feel less mental distress after surgery to remove their breasts, according to a study from Northwestern Medicine. “Our findings are that top surgery (to remove the breasts) benefits these teenagers and young adults,” said Dr. Sumanas Jordan, lead author of the study and assistant professor of plastic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It is so important to be able to have evidence and treat them not based on politics but based on science and medicine.” Patients who underwent surgery also experienced less body image dissatisfaction and more gender congruence, which is when people feel that their appearance matches their gender identity. “Adolescence is a pretty turbulent time, but to have that burden of that extra chest dysphoria and gender dysphoria that’s untreated, I think that does a lot of harm,” said Jordan.
