Media Coverage

Correctional facilities may also consider computer adaptive testing for suicide assessments, which changes the questions based on the respondent’s prior answers and can adapt over time if given multiple times, said Karen Abram of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who also wasn’t involved in the study. “Youth suicide is a preventable public health problem,” she said in an email. “Suicide prevention training for staff is critical, especially training to recognize warning signs for suicide.”

“As the weather gets colder,” says Dr. Steve Xu, a dermatology instructor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, “it gets more drying for our skin, and when you add the wind, that’s extremely drying to skin.”[…]Dehydration can be a danger for South Pole scientists who routinely work outdoors in severe cold, but it’s also an enemy of healthy skin, even in smaller doses, says Xu. “When it’s very dried out, your skin just doesn’t provide the kind of barrier you’re used to.” Dryness leads to cracking “dry riverbed skin” and allows your skin to be easily irritated. “All kinds of things can get in there,” Xu says, “chemicals from cosmetics, other things.”

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove that fried foods directly impact longevity. Another drawback is that it relied on women to accurately recall everything they ate. Even so, the results offer fresh evidence that how food is prepared can have a big impact on health, said Dr. Clyde Yancy of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Poultry and fish are generally regarded as ‘heart healthy’ dietary choices but the process of frying changes the health consequences,” Yancy, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

In such extreme cold, exposed skin can develop frostbite in as little as five minutes, said George T. Chiampas, an emergency medicine doctor and professor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The body’s first reaction to extreme cold is to restrict blood and oxygen flow from its extremities, in order to preserve major organs, Dr. Chiampas said. The first signs of frostbite including tingling or pain in the affected areas. If you think you have frostbite, you should immediately go inside and check yourself for any discoloration or other clear sign of frostbite. Fingers, toes and the face are most often affected.

A 2017 study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice showed that consumers make “risk assessments” based on the words used in this kind of labeling. “We’re making consumers decide, based on the wording of that precautionary allergen label, what seems safe for themselves or their child, and I think that’s a huge issue,” said Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and an author of the study.

A xenotransplant, he explained, might allow those children to survive while they await a suitable human organ. Dr. Carl Backer is surgical director of the pediatric heart transplant program at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “There are children born with cardiac disease that we can’t fix,” he said. “The only option is a heart transplant.” Just over 100 babies younger than 1 year undergo a heart transplant in the United States each year, according to Backer. “But probably many more could use one, if a donor heart were available,” he said.

Mrs. Roberts’ son, Mr. Williams, was devastated and terrified. He told her he had suffered too much, and his big sister’s death brought home to him the fact that his life, too, could end at any moment. He wanted to stop the monthly blood transfusions that were easing his symptoms. He wanted to go ahead and die. Then Dr. Alexis Thompson, a sickle-cell specialist at Northwestern University, told Mr. Williams that he could join a new study of gene therapy that might help. There were no guarantees, and there was a chance Mr. Williams could die from the treatment. Mr. Williams was enthusiastic, but his mother was filled with trepidation. In the end, she decided “we’ve got to try something,” she recalled.

We’re primed to binge. “We’re pleasure seekers. We’re wired to seek pleasure,” Allison Johnsen, a clinical professional counselor at Northwestern Medicine, said in an interview. Pleasure-seeking behavior — like indulging suspenseful works of fiction — can be an advantageous adaptation, so long as it’s not regularly abused (One 2017 study found it could lead to sleep-deprivation). It can help maintain emotional health, even if that means hours of binge-watching.

A new Northwestern Medicine study was able to successfully predict whether women would experience worsening depressive symptoms within the first year of childbirth by identifying four maternal characteristics that put them at risk. Among them: the number of children the woman has; her ability to function in general life, at work and in relationships; her education level; and her depression severity at four to eight weeks postpartum. “By the time a mother comes in for her six-week postpartum visit, we have the potential to predict the severity of her depression over the next 12 months,” said first author Sheehan Fisher, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in a statement.[…]Northwestern co-authors included Dorothy Sit, Amy Yang, Jody Ciolino and Jacki Gollan. Katherine Wisner was the senior author.

NEW HEART FAILURE CENTER: The new Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute Advanced Heart Failure Center at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital is treating patients with advanced heart failure, the Daily Herald reported. Northwestern Memorial will continue handling heart transplant and mechanical support device surgery.[…]DIAGNOSING DISEASE WITH 3-D TECH: Northwestern University researchers have developed a new tool that could help diagnose diseases earlier by detecting subtle changes in capillary organization, the university announced. The 3-D imaging technique is called spectral contrast optical coherence tomography angiography.