Media Coverage

I asked Mark Reinecke, chief of psychology for Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, about the merits of the Fab Five’s approach. He offered tips on how to have a productive conversation when you don’t agree with someone on a tough topic. According to Reinecke, after being an active listener (not thinking up retorts while the other person talks), it’s important to validate the other person’s perspective before trying to change his or her mind. The conversation might start with: “I can see why you have this view and why it’s important to you. I wonder if there is another way to look at this?”

“Things have changed a lot from the Eisenhower era of bed rest,” said Dr. R. Kannan Mutharasan, a cardiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Back then, patients were told to lie in bed and were even given “stool softeners so people didn’t have to strain,” he said. Instead, his long-term recovery involved a fitness routine that includes weight lifting, yoga, Pilates, walking and, yes, running. Today, many doctors prescribe exercise for their patients who have had heart attacks. Any exercise regimen requires careful monitoring and medical supervision. But for many, exercise post-heart attack has been shown to improve quality of life and decrease the risk for another cardiac event.

No one knows exactly how PTSD might work to increase the risk of heart disease, but Morabia suspects the psychological condition “may stimulate the production of inflammatory cells that then go into the blood vessels and create atherosclerosis.” One big advantage this study has over previous ones linking PTSD to heart disease is that it followed people over time to see who experienced heart attacks and strokes, said Dr. Mark Huffman of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. Huffman, who wasn’t involved in the study, said future research should look into whether treatment of PTSD would lead to a reduction of cardiovascular events.

“In the past, many cases of diabetes were not being adequately controlled,” says Joel Shalowitz, a retired professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and a consultant. “Now more people are getting dialysis treatment earlier. And the federal government has changed reimbursement to make dialysis less lucrative for hospitals. They don’t have the specialization and economies of scale that enable a company like DaVita to be profitable at this.”

Children whose parents are incarcerated are more likely to skip needed health care and engage in unhealthy behaviors, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics. “When parents are incarcerated, children are serving a life sentence as well, and unfortunately, it shows up in their health behaviors and most likely in other aspects of their life as well,” said Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, lead author of the study and pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The idea for the study was inspired, in part, by a conversation Heard-Garris had with Dr. Tyler Winkelman, the second author on the study, about whether they should be asking their patients if they had a parent who was incarcerated. “Having a family disruption, whether it be incarceration or divorce, can impact children and their health down the road,” said Heard-Garris.

“The United States has the highest incarceration rates in the world. With the climbing number of parents, especially mothers, who are incarcerated, our study calls attention to the invisible victims — their children,” said lead study author Dr. Nia Heard-Garris. She is a pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. In the study, the investigators analyzed data from more than 13,000 young adults, aged 24 to 32, across the United States and found that 10 percent had a parent incarcerated during their childhood. On average, these people were 10 years old the first time their parent was imprisoned.

The adjustment inside our body happens more quickly, too. According to some estimates, the typical person’s internal clock shifts about 92 minutes later each day after a westward trip, but just 57 minutes earlier after going east. On the flip side, for the minority of people who are early birds with clocks that are shorter than 24 hours, adjusting to going east is easier, says Sabra Abbott, a neurologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Dr. Kent Bailey, emergency medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, said anyone who is struck by lightning should seek help immediately and be evaluated, even if they appear OK. A lightning strike doesn’t typically create many exterior burns, but internally there can be significant burn damage to muscles, nerves and bones, Bailey said. “For anybody who is struck by lightning, an ambulance should be called,” he said. “They should always be evaluated. … The sooner you get on a monitor and evaluated, the better off you are.”

Making healthy decisions at the grocery store just got easier, thanks to an app developed by Northwestern University researchers that not only rates the nutritional value of packaged foods but also suggests healthier alternatives. “I’m a cardiologist. I take care of patients who’ve beared the burden of poor nutrition over years,” said Dr. Mark Huffman, associate professor of preventative medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “So it’s pretty important to empower individuals and communities who know that they should be eating healthful food to improve their cardiovascular health.”

Whether you have fair or dark skin, hit the beach every day or only on vacation, are 16 or 60, you need to use sunscreen if you’ll be in the sun for longer than a few minutes. But with bottles and tubes covered with claims, “it’s really hard to make sense of what all the terminology means,” says ,”Roopal V. Kundu, an associate professor of dermatology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who researches how people buy and use sunscreen. Here, then, is the help you need: seven common terms and what they actually mean — and don’t. First, however, know that although the federal government requires sunscreen claims to be “truthful and not misleading,” only three of the main claims that consumers see — “SPF,” “broad-spectrum” and “water-resistant” — are strictly regulated.