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
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Botox helping to ease pain for Ukrainian war amputees
Doctors from Northwestern University’s School of Medicine are using a Botox-like substance injections to help treat Ukrainian soldiers who are experiencing phantom pain after amputations.
Steven Cohen, MD, said, “In your brain, you have a representation of your entire body, and then you lose your leg, then your brain reorganizes. You can have pain in the phantom because it’s not reorganizing.”
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Crain’s Chicago Business
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FDA decision on menopause treatment lacks nuance, Northwestern expert says
Dr. Lauren Streicher both applauded and questioned the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s announcement earlier this week that it would eliminate 20-year-old warnings about the use of hormone therapy to treat symptoms of menopause.
Streicher, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, has some reservations about federal health officials’ methods and motives in suggesting they’ll universally strip warnings about side effects of estrogen therapies like cancer, heart disease, blood clots and dementia.
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NPR
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Is hormone therapy for menopause right for you? 6 things to know
Women should not suffer through menopause with hot flashes, night sweats and poor sleep. That’s the message from FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.
How long should you be on hormone therapy?
“We don’t take someone off [hormone therapy] just because it’s been three to five years,” says Lauren Streicher of Northwestern University. She points to differences in how long menopause symptoms persist, noting that Black and Hispanic women tend to experience symptoms for longer time periods.
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ABC Chicago
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Food Allergies, Treatments And Possible Prevention
About one in 13 children have food allergies, and at least 40% have been treated in the emergency room for reactions to those food allergies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Reactions include hives, swollen airways, digestive problems, and in some people, they may be more severe, even life threatening. However, researchers says there are potentially ways to prevent peanut allergies.
Dr. Ruchi Gupta is the director of the Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research at Northwestern University. She says we’re seeing more children with food allergies than in the past.
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CBS News
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Pennsylvania man says experimental drug has helped him recover from cycling accident
An experimental drug could help improve movement for patients with spinal cord injuries, and it’s already making a big difference for one patient in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.
Monica Perez, of the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, is the lead investigator. She said she tested 20 patients with chronic incomplete cervical spinal cord injuries. Early results are positive, she said, and she’s hoping for more approvals from the FDA.
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Associated Press
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A study questions melatonin use and heart health but don’t lose sleep over it
Don’t lose sleep over headlines linking melatonin to heart failure. That’s the message after some scary-sounding reports about a preliminary study involving the sleep-related supplement. It raised questions about the safety of long term use of melatonin for insomnia.
But only certain countries require a melatonin prescription. It’s over-the-counter in the U.S., meaning Americans in the study might have used the supplements without it being recorded, said Northwestern University cardiology chief Dr. Clyde Yancy, who wasn’t involved in the study. The study also did not show dosages.
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New York Times
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Rise in Kidney Disease Tied to Other Chronic Conditions, Study Finds
The number of adults with chronic kidney disease is growing, according to a study published Friday in The Lancet. The disease was the ninth leading cause of death worldwide in 2023, up from the 27th leading cause in 1990.
“We should be doing a better job of identifying individuals at risk and intervening,” said Dr. Susan Quaggin, a former president of the American Society of Nephrology and chair of medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine who was not involved in the study.
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Fox News
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New pancreatic cancer treatment ‘wakes up’ immune cells, researchers say
Scientists have created a new antibody treatment that helps the immune system recognize and attack pancreatic cancer.
“Pancreatic cancer is notoriously good at hiding from the immune system, but we were struck that a single sugar, called sialic acid, can so powerfully fool immune cells,” senior author Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told Fox News Digital.
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Associated Press
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Disease of 1,000 faces shows how science is tackling immunity’s dark side
Like with lupus, RA treatment is trial-and-error and scientists are exploring different underlying factors to explain why. In one study, an international team used tiny samples of patients’ joint tissue to identify six inflammatory subtypes of RA based on patterns of cells, how they clustered and their activity.
It “changed how we think about the disease,” said Northwestern University rheumatology chief Harris Perlman, one of the coauthors. Now researchers are comparing cells in joint tissue before and after patients start a new drug to see if they could help guide treatment choices, he said.
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New York Times
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Is Melatonin Bad for Your Heart? Here’s What to Know.
This week, a series of headlines warned about the potential risks of taking the sleep supplement melatonin, saying new research had linked it to a 90 percent increase in heart failure. The research is from an unpublished study set to be presented at the American Heart Association’s scientific conference in New Orleans next week.
It also lacked information about melatonin dosage and insomnia severity, said Dr. Phyllis Zee a sleep doctor and researcher at Northwestern Medicine who was not involved with the study. Both of these factors could affect heart risks.
