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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NBC News
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HIV hits black women hardest, CDC report says
“We know that African American women are disproportionally affected by the HIV epidemic in the United States, and the interventions that have been laid out have not impacted this group in the same way it has males and nonblack women,” said Dr. Michael Angarone, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The researchers looked at HIV data collected over a seven-year period and used a model to measure the disparity among different groups called the population attributable proportion, or PAP. They modeled the reductions in new HIV infections that would have occurred if the rate of infections among black women were the same as white women. They found that the PAP decreased from 0.75 in 2010 to 0.70 in 2016.
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Chicago Tribune
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What would it take to cure your hot flashes? One shot in the neck might do the trick
“It’s not just feeling sweaty for a few minutes,” says Dr. David Walega, chief of pain medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “In the most severe hot flashes, women feel like they’re having a panic attack. They feel like they need to flee or get away and the heart races, the fight or flight hormones are all going crazy. And all they can do is wait for it to end.” Luckily, Barler found Walega, and a treatment that may be the answer women with severe hot flashes have been desperately looking for. Walega’s research has shown a startling impact on hot flashes with the use of a nerve-blocking shot that has been in use for pain management since the 1940s.
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U.S. News & World Report
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A Patient’s Guide to Gestational Diabetes
Gestational diabetes in the mother also leads to a higher risk a child will go on to develop prediabetes – a precursor to Type 2 diabetes – according to research published in the journal Diabetes Care. The research focused on the incidence of what’s also referred to as impaired glucose tolerance, and found this in 10.6 percent of children ages 10 to 14 of mothers who had untreated gestational diabetes. “What we found is that impaired glucose tolerance is significantly more frequent in those whose mothers had gestational diabetes,” says Dr. Boyd Metzger, the study’s corresponding author and a professor emeritus of endocrinology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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Yahoo! News
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Parents Under Investigation After Refusing Chemotherapy for Their Son With Cancer
Doctors caution against relying on natural methods to cure cancer. A 2017 study found that those with cancer who chose an alternative approach were 2.5 times more likely to die than those who stuck with conventional medicine. In an essay for Stat News, Suneel Kamath, hematology/oncology fellow at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, argued for an approach that incorporates alternative techniques like meditation, diet and acupuncture alongside traditional medicine.
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Chicago Tribune
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2 Illinois universities launch twins research project
Two Illinois universities are putting together what they say is the first database to focus on twins in the state. Northwestern University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say in a news release they’re launching the Illinois Twins Project. Researchers will compile information from twins and other multiples in Illinois between from birth until they turn 17 years and will be a scientific resource for researchers interested in how genes and environment influence twins and other multiples. And it will allow them to examine differences between identical and fraternal twins.
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TIME
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Heart Problems Are Killing More Americans—Even Younger Ones. Here’s How to Reduce Your Risk
The most dramatic increases were among black Americans, the researchers found. Those increases may be at least partially due to the epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, says co-author Dr. Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor of cardiology and preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “The growing prevalence of obesity and diabetes is now outweighing the progress we’ve made,” in terms of medications, treatments and surgical procedures.
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HealthDay
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Many Kids With Chronic Illness Are Still Happy: Study
Researchers found that among more than 1,200 5- to 9-year-olds, those with some of the most common childhood ills were no less happy with their lives than other kids. They said the findings highlight an important point: Kids aren’t “defined” by their medical issues. “This can help broaden our perspective of what ‘health’ is,” said lead researcher Courtney Blackwell, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
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Reuters
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U.S. government website for comparing doctors lacks data on most MDs
“The group that does is the `army of the willing’ and likely early adopters in the quality movement,” Arora, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “More robust uptake would likely require mandatory reporting, financial incentives, and also improved ease of reporting using electronic health records to avoid adding increased burden to physician practices.” Currently, there are no meaningful, publicly available data for patients to use in assessing physician performance and quality, said Dr. Karl Bilimoria, director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center.at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.
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National Public Radio
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From Gloom To Gratitude: 8 Skills To Cultivate Joy
When she agreed to be a participant in the study, it was a way to reach out for help. She knew she couldn’t change her circumstances, but she wanted to learn to cope better. “When you’re experiencing a lot of stress, it’s easy to head into a downward spiral,” says Judith Moskowitz of Northwestern University. She is trained as a psychologist and studies the ways positive emotions can influence people’s health and stress. She developed the program taught to the caregivers. As part of her research, hundreds of stressed-out people have taken the five-week skills class, including women with breast cancer, people newly diagnosed with HIV, people managing Type 2 diabetes and people with depression.
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NBC News
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Feds: A popular drug from the disco era is making a deadly return
“Absolutely, there is a generational piece to this,” said Hans Breiter, a Northwestern University psychiatry professor and one of the world’s leading experts on how cocaine stimulates the human brain. Today’s narcotics abusers may be turning to cocaine in part “because there’s been a lot of bad press about other drugs,” Breiter said. Just like the generation that dealt with the horrors of AIDS was followed by another that was less afraid of the scourge and thus more likely to have unprotected sex, today’s drug users aren’t afraid of cocaine like they should be, he said.
