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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Blood Test Could Gauge Your Odds for Lung Trouble Like COPD
An experimental blood test could one day help identify people most likely to develop severe lung problems like COPD. The test reviews a panel of 32 proteins in blood that best predict people most likely to suffer a rapid decline in lung function, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Adults with higher test scores have: an 84% increased risk of COPD, 81% increased chance of dying from a respiratory disease like COPD or pneumonia, 17% increased risk of requiring hospital care for respiratory problems, 10% increased risk of respiratory symptoms that need treatment, like a cough, mucus or shortness of breath. “Loss of lung function on a year-over-year basis is associated with poor respiratory health outcomes, but we do not have a good way to easily figure out if a patient is on a steep trajectory of lung function decline,” said researcher Ravi Kalhan, MD, MS, a professor of pulmonary medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “If we had an easy-to-implement clinical tool, like a blood test, that captured someone’s lung function trajectory at a single time point, it would enable earlier interventions which might, in the long run, improve lung health,” Kalhan added.
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ABC 7 Chicago
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What you need to know about ‘sloth fever’ after 21 cases confirmed among US travelers
Health officials are warning Americans about a rare insect-borne virus that has infected several travelers. As of Aug. 16, there have been 21 cases of Oropouche virus disease, sometimes called “sloth fever,” detected among U.S. travelers returning from Cuba, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC said it wants clinicians and public health offices to be aware of the virus and to test for suspected cases, and for travelers to protect themselves from insect bites. Common symptoms include fever, headache, chills, muscle aches and joint pain, typically lasting about two to seven days and then disappearing. Patients may experience other symptoms including nausea, vomiting, rash, sensitivity to light, dizziness and pain behind the eyes. “This virus is an interesting one in that about a week later, 50% or more of people will have a recurrence of the symptoms,” Michael Angarone, DO, an infectious diseases specialist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, told ABC News. “So, the symptoms will recur and, again, be present for around five days to seven days and then go away. So, I think that’s a very interesting aspect of this virus.”
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WebMD
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Ways to Tame Stress When You Have CAD
Stress is something we all deal with. And when you have coronary artery disease, stress management is a key part of taking care of yourself. For all animals — including humans — stress is a basic instinct. It’s the body’s fight or flight response for fending off danger. It presses the “pause” button on our bodily functions and puts all our energy toward the threat at hand. And it’s not always bad. In fact, it might even save your life. “Acute stress is something that we want,” says Alyssa Vela, PhD, a clinical health psychologist in Chicago. “If you didn’t have that reaction in the body, you might just walk out onto Michigan Avenue and not pay attention to any of the cars or buses driving past.” The trouble happens when our stress response is activated around the clock, says Kim Feingold, PhD, Vela’s colleague at Northwestern’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, where their small team helps people adjust after a heart disease diagnosis. That includes managing stress. “Activating our stress response is appropriate and healthy when there’s an impending threat,” Feingold says. “But when we get cut off in traffic, or we’re on hold for a long time with an insurance agent, or we’re getting spam calls at an inconvenient time, or we’re having an argument, our body is not in jeopardy the same way that it was thousands of years ago, when our stress response was created. Yet we continue to activate our stress response in these situations.”
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TIME
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9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore
Cardiologists are sharing the weird symptoms that patients often brush off—but which could actually signal a serious heart problem. These include a sinking feeling in your chest, whooshing in the ear, pain or fatigue in the legs while walking, changes in your feet or legs, jaw or neck pain with exertion, indigestion and nausea, carpal tunnel discomfort paired with shortness of breath, sudden stabbing chest pain and trouble with daily activities. Valvular disease is a growing focus area in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, says Charles Davidson, an interventional cardiologist who’s vice chair of clinical affairs in the department of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. While coronary disease occurs when the arteries that supply the heart become blocked, valvular disease indicates that the heart’s valves aren’t working well. Unlike a sudden cardiac event—say, a heart attack—valvular disease develops slowly, over five to 10 years. Many patients don’t experience symptoms until later in the course of disease, if at all, Davidson says.
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NBC News
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Death threats, legal risk and backlogs weigh on clinicians treating trans minors
Twenty-six states now have restrictions on transgender health care for minors, according to the LGBTQ think tank Movement Advancement Project. The laws have left those still able to provide this type of care, like Goepferd, struggling to keep up with demand. More than a third of transgender teens in the U.S. now live in states with bans on trans health care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project. These restrictions have driven thousands of young people to seek transition-related care out of state, straining resources at the network of gender clinics still open. Three-quarters of the providers NBC News interviewed had waitlists of at least three months, with some as long as a year. Sumanas Jordan, MD, PhD, medical director of Northwestern Medicine’s Gender Pathways Program in Chicago, said her clinic is flooded with calls every time a ban passes. “We actually have a script, because the volume increases so much that we have to have a lot of people help us,” Jordan said, noting that Northwestern’s calendar has remained “constantly full” even as more appointments have been added.
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Yahoo! News
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Everything to Know About Hypnotherapy for IBS, Which Experts Say Is a Legit Treatment
If you’ve ever been seriously worried about something and then ended up with a case of diarrhea, you may have guessed that your mind and gut are as tightly wed as an old married couple. For many people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), that close relationship can look like a revolving door: Anxiety causes constipation, cramps, stomach pain, and diarrhea, which then leads to stress followed by more symptoms—it’s a vicious cycle. The good news is that there are therapies that can break the cycle, including one that often gets some side-eye: hypnosis. If you’re skeptical, keep in mind that this isn’t about some mystic who wants to make you cluck like a chicken. Known medically as gut-directed hypnotherapy, it’s a real thing that’s recommended by experts, particularly for folks with IBS that’s triggered by psychological factors. IBS is officially considered a “disorder of gut-brain interaction,” which basically means there’s a messed up communication somewhere. “As an example, the brain may misinterpret a normal digestive sensation as something abnormal,” Kathryn Tomasino, PhD, a GI psychologist and assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said.
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WebMD
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Knee Osteoarthritis: How to Make Sure The ‘Ouch’ Doesn’t Win
Osteoarthritis is a pain – literally. In many cases, it can make it difficult to walk or get up from a sitting position, and may mess with your sleep and daily activities, especially when it affects the knees. Researchers project that by 2050, knee osteoarthritis cases will increase by almost 75% globally. Although there is no cure, there are things that people can do to get moving again, often without pain and discomfort. The key is to catch it as early as possible. One of the most important risk factors for knee osteoarthritis is age; the disease often makes itself known in adults ages 45 and older as the cartilage – the tissue that pads your bones – wears out. But the role that age plays may be changing. “While age is a major factor, there is a trend of onset shifting to younger individuals,” said Alison H. Chang, PT, DPT, MS, a physical therapist and professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. Other things that can lead to knee osteoarthritis include previous surgeries, higher weight, and disorders of the joints, such as being bowlegged, Chang said.
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New York Times
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A Popular Weight Loss Drug Is Getting a Price Cut
With high demand for drugs like Ozempic, and a limited supply, a novel marketplace has emerged to cater to customers who can’t access them. Dozens of telehealth companies offer online prescriptions for cheaper, compounded versions of these medications. These alternative drugs come in vials, with syringes to draw out each dose, and cost hundreds of dollars less than brand-name options. On Tuesday, Eli Lilly announced that it would start selling low doses of its weight-loss drug Zepbound in vials, too — at a far lower price than its pens, which come with pre-filled doses. The lower-cost offering could expand access for the many people whose insurance plans do not cover the powerful weight-loss medication, said Lindsay Allen, PhD, a health economist at Northwestern Medicine. As weight-loss drugs have grown in popularity, some insurers have restricted access to them or stopped covering them altogether, to get ballooning costs under control. Some estimates suggest that millions of patients have in turn sought out cheaper alternatives to these drugs from compounding pharmacies, which can make copycat versions of any medication the Food and Drug Administration lists as “in shortage.” That includes tirzepatide, the substance in Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro.
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MSN online
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Spike mutations that help SARS-CoV-2 infect the brain discovered
Scientists have discovered a mutation in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that plays a key role in its ability to infect the central nervous system. The findings may help scientists understand its neurological symptoms and the mystery of “long COVID,” and they could one day even lead to specific treatments to protect and clear the virus from the brain. The new collaborative study between scientists at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois-Chicago uncovered a series of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (the outer part of the virus that helps it penetrate cells) that enhanced the virus’s ability to infect the brains of mice. “Looking at the genomes of viruses found in the brain compared to the lung, we found that viruses with a specific deletion in spike were much better at infecting the brains of these animals,” said co-corresponding author Judd Hultquist, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) and microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This was completely unexpected, but very exciting.”
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Yahoo! News
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Woman credits 1 exercise for helping her notice warning signs of rare statin complication
A woman was diagnosed with myositis, inflammation of the muscles due to injury, infection or an autoimmune disease. In her case, it was triggered by her body’s reaction to a statin she’d been taking to lower cholesterol. Statins can sometimes cause muscle aches and weakness, but Furlan developed a rare autoimmune response with statin exposure, says Arjun Seth, MD, her neuromuscular specialist and co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Myositis Clinic in Chicago. It meant her immune system was attacking her body. “The muscle was being inflamed. And because the muscle was inflamed, it was causing muscle breakdown; and when the muscle breaks down, people notice that as weakness,” Seth tells. The condition impacted all her muscles, but especially the larger ones in the upper arms and upper legs, including the thighs and quadriceps. Core muscle weakness is another symptom, thus Furlan’s eventual inability to do dead bugs. “The condition ends up being a chronic condition. So it turns into something like diabetes or hypertension where someone needs to be taking a medication lifelong,” Seth says. Patients take immune suppressants to calm down the body’s response. In Furlan’s case, she’s receiving regular infusions of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and the drug rituximab.
