Media Coverage

The U.S. surgeon general is encouraging employers to stock opioid overdose-reversal drugs in workplace first-aid kits. “We can’t fix the opioid epidemic from our silos,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams said today during a panel discussion at Northwestern Medicine’s Prentice Women’s Hospital. Health care professionals and business professionals “must partner together.”

Elizabeth McNally, a cardiologist and director of the Center for Genetic Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said that, years ago, she was excited by the findings from Anversa’s lab, but then had trouble replicating them herself. She described a “religious fervor” that took hold among those who believed that c-kit cells were regenerating the heart that has continued as researchers have sought to find factors that could be responsible for what she described as “tiny to nonexistent” effects. “It’s disappointing that it took so many years for this to come out,” McNally said. “It’s one question whether the trial should even continue, and I think at the highest level the individuals supporting the trial should really review that.”

“We are still learning,” agrees Alan Peaceman, MD, chief of maternal fetal medicine in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University outside Chicago. Several new studies are looking to change that by providing clear scientific data aimed at finding the best treatment and care for women during pregnancy and childbirth[…]“Obstetrics was traditionally taught as an apprenticeship based on experience and information passed down, but without a whole lot of science involved. Most of medicine was practiced that way, but obstetrics probably longer than it should until we started doing randomized clinical trials,” Peaceman explains.

Most of us get our flu shots in the fall, noted Dr. Michael Ison, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “That is when rhinoviruses are circulating,” he added. “Most people think a cold is just a stuffy nose,” Ison said. “But you can get really sick from a cold. In fact, many viruses can make you as sick as the flu does.”

Working with human lung tissue and mice, Northwestern University researchers found that metformin reduces pollution-triggered inflammation linked to heart attack and stroke. “These findings suggest metformin as a potential therapy to prevent some of the premature deaths attributable to air pollution exposure worldwide,” co-lead author Dr. Scott Budinger said in a university news release. “The simplest next step would be to validate our study with metformin in people in China or other places where exposure to high levels of air pollution are common to see if it reduces inflammation,” said Budinger, chief of pulmonary and critical care at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“Unfortunately, at this time we have no scientific evidence on the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes, especially given the unknown effects of the aerosols and flavorings in e-cigarette liquids,” said Dr. Thanh-Huyen Vu, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago. However, researchers know plenty about nicotine. The drug “is well known to be addictive and toxic, and to have adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and on health in general,” Vu said. And that’s enough to raise concerns about teenagers’ e-cigarette use, she added.

“Recognizing that these disparities exist, it behooves us to figure out how to decrease the disparities,” said Dr. Alan Peaceman, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and chief of obstetrics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “The numbers here are concerningly high.” Women of any race or ethnicity who had a chronic health condition, such as asthma, diabetes, kidney disease or high blood pressure, before giving birth were at a higher risk of severe delivery-related complications. Black women who had two or more chronic health problems were nearly three times as likely as those with none to have a severe complication related to birth, the study found.

Her experience is a familiar one, says Dr. Lee Lindquist, a geriatrician at Northwestern Medicine. “I see patients in my clinic who could definitely use home support … and they’ll absolutely refuse it,” Lindquist said. “It drives me nuts because you see other people who are accepting of services and flourishing.” Curious as to why some older adults refuse to accept help, researchers went straight to the source. “We decided let’s ask seniors, ‘Why wouldn’t you want help in the home? And what could we say to help you accept help?’” Lindquist said.

In fiscal 2017, Northwestern set an all-time university record for annual research funding, bringing in more than $676.5 million, up 4 percent from the year before and 54 percent greater than a decade ago. Recent grants include the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarding $11.5 million to the university’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center to develop new treatments for patients with glioblastoma, the most common and deadly type of brain tumor. The NEST (Newborn Essential Solutions and Technologies) project – a collaboration with Rice University, the University of Malawi and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine – received $15 million from the MacArthur Foundation to develop technologies that will help improve the survival of newborns in developing African nations.

The big advantage of this kind of study is that “in combining information across so many prior studies you’re really getting at one of the best estimates of the disparity of suicide risk due to sexual orientation,” said Brian Mustanski, director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health and Well Being at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “We already knew (LGBT) teens were at risk, but this study gives a more precise estimate of that risk.” Mustanski has followed a group of young people for over a decade. He has found that the accumulation of experiences with victimization and bullying can lead to depression and feelings of hopelessness. “And those increase the risk for suicide,” said Mustanski who was not affiliated with the new study.