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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Yahoo! News
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Ways to Help You Beat Holiday Loneliness and Discover True Joy
In fact, 61 percent of Americans feel lonely this time of year, according to a 2023 survey. If you’re struggling or feel isolated, just know that you are far from alone. Here, psychologists and researchers share nine heartfelt ways to foster connection, community and true contentment this season—and beyond. The first thing to know about loneliness? “It’s a very common emotion, especially during a time of year couched in such deep nostalgia,” says psychologist Eileen Kranz Graham, PhD, Assistant Director of the Lifespan Personality and Health Lab at Northwestern University. She explains that while nostalgia can be uplifting, it’s often tinged with sadness. “During such an emotionally charged season, it may make some of us withdraw further. But just knowing everyone is experiencing strong emotions this time of year can help you feel less alone.” If you don’t have family nearby this holiday, take heart: Simply saying “hi” to acquaintances or enjoying a bit of small talk with your barista—or so-called “weak ties”—is shown to lift your mood for hours, says Graham. In short, when you feel lonely, just taking a moment to lift someone else up will help lift you up.
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US News & World Report
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‘Game of Roulette’: Flying With Food Allergies Brings Stress, Danger
Holiday travel is always stressful, but particularly so for people with food allergies. Airlines don’t always honor requests to protect the health of people with food allergies during flights, a new study published Dec. 5 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found. “These data clearly show that air travel is a major stressor for those affected by food allergy — to the point that food allergy-related airline policies were the single-most important consideration respondents identified when making air-travel decisions — taking priority over factors like the proximity of the airport to their home, flight duration and price,” said lead researcher Christopher Warren, PhD, director of population health research at Northwestern University’s Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research. “When you get to the gate and everyone acts like you’re crazy for bringing this up, that’s a terrible experience,” she said in a Northwestern news release. Senior researcher Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, director of Northwestern University Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research, said her personal experience dealing with in-flight allergy emergencies has been largely positive. “On the occasions when I have been called upon to treat in-flight health emergencies and have personally cracked open the in-flight medical bag, I have been pleasantly surprised each time I found unexpired epinephrine auto-injectors ready for immediate use,” Gupta said.
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Chicago Tribune
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Chicago biohub backed by Mark Zuckerberg publishes its first research, discovering way to continuously monitor inflammation
A Chicago biomedical research hub backed by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, has produced its first published research — on discovering a way to monitor inflammation in real time using sensors implanted under the skin. The study, co-led by Northwestern University researchers at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, was published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Science. “We hope that this is work that provides a foundation for us being able to track inflammation in the human body, which is important to do because many, many diseases really start as inflammation, where you have damaged tissue caused by the immune system,” said Shana O. Kelley, PhD, a senior author of the paper, president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago and a professor of chemistry and engineering at Northwestern. “If we could see inflammation kind of rising in the human body, we could intervene at a much earlier point and then hopefully the disease does not become as advanced, or, one day we prevent it all together,” Kelley said.
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USA Today
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The Kardashians love this ‘biological age test’ so I tried it. Here’s what I learned.
The short of it: I tried out a few biological age tests as part of my reporting on longevity to find out what all the fuss was about these types of measurements. Like many test results I’ve received in my life, I wondered how much to put stock in all this. Still, “this type of measurement is interesting but incomplete,” argues Douglas E. Vaughan, MD, professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute. “There are many other ways to measure biological age, including measuring levels of proteins in the blood” plus “a growing set of tools that use AI.” Diet, exercise and luck are the true names of the game for longevity. And you don’t need a scientist to tell you that.
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NPR
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Dizzy after one drink? Social drinkers on obesity drugs lose the taste for alcohol
Many social drinkers who take obesity medications, such as Wegovy or Mounjaro, say they don’t enjoy alcohol as much. A new study of WeightWatchers members who take obesity drugs — and were in the habit of drinking — finds about half of them cut back after they started the medication. During some of the landmark clinical trials of GLP-1 drugs that demonstrated reductions in body weight, researchers heard anecdotal reports from participants about changes in habits. “They would tell us that they would drink less or even shop less,” says Robert Kushner, MD of Northwestern University, a GLP-1 researcher who is also a consultant to drug makers. People also reported less ‘food noise’ he says. Their “thinking of food diminished and the reward of food was diminished,” Kushner says. GLP-1 – which stands for glucagon-like peptide 1 – drugs increase the amount of insulin that the pancreas produces and boost the ability of the pancreas to release insulin. But the drugs also influence the brain’s reward system. “The drugs circulate throughout the body, including the brain, to reduce appetite,” Kushner says. So, Kushner says he’s not surprised by the results of this study pointing to less alcohol consumption. ” I think this is an extension of this reward based biology that we see that these drugs are affecting,” he says.
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USA Today
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What’s causing your hip pain? Here’s everything you need to know.
If you sit at a desk all day, or lie on your side at night, you might already be familiar with the achy, uncomfortable sensation that comes with experiencing hip pain. What exactly causes hip pain? The reality is: hip pain can stem from a multitude of underlying conditions. Hip pain can impact different areas of the hip joint, and sometimes, what you think might be hip pain could actually be a condition that’s causing pain to another area of your body. There are a few different areas of the hip that patients usually point to when experiencing hip pain: the front of the hip (close to the groin or hip crease area), the back of the hip (close to the buttock), and around the sides of the hip, says W. Christian Thomas, MD, an assistant professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Adult Reconstruction at Northwestern University. “Each of those different areas can have a different constellation of problems that go along with it,” says Thomas. The symptoms of hip pain will vary depending on the underlying cause. Hip pain is often characterized by a clicking and snapping around the hip, although it could also feel more deep-seated, with cramps and burns. Bursitis is another condition that impacts the tissues on the outside of the hip. This happens when the bursa, which is the protective padding where the tendon meets bone, becomes inflamed, Thomas adds.
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CNN
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How music is medicine for these Alzheimer’s patients and their loved ones
Long-term memory of music remains intact until the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to Borna Bonakdarpour, MD, FAAN, FANA, a neurologist at Northwestern Medicine. A study by researchers at University of Utah Health showed that music, especially that which holds personal meaning, can activate the brain even after other pathways are damaged. Listening to this kind of music also helped to improve the brain’s adaptability in patients with early Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto.
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ABC 7 Chicago
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Men’s Health Month: Former Army Green Beret shares importance of early prostate cancer screenings
November is men’s health month, and there is an important remind that prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer in men, and it’s easily detectable. “Prostate cancer in general is not rare,” Northwestern Medicine Urologist Hitan Patel, MD said. “One in eight men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and actually one in five veterans.” Dr. Patel said a case like Bosley’s is uncommon, but says prostate cancer rates for veterans are higher than the general population. Both he and Bosley say the stigma around getting tested is unwarranted. “Only about 10% of prostate cancers can be felt on a digital rectal exam,” Dr. Patel said. “90 plus percent are actually going to be diagnosed because that screening blood test was done or trended over time.” Bosley is now cancer free and on the road to recovery, but he says the earlier you catch prostate cancer, the fewer consequences there are down the road.
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ABC 11
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Boo-Yah event in honor of Stuart Scott recognizes researcher fighting racial disparities in cancer
Adam Murphy, MD, distinguished professor of health equity research in urology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine focuses his research on prostate cancer disparities in minorities and he is already changing outcomes. “We were able to really leverage the work that we did in the V Foundation, Stuart Scott Award, to create a Black Prostate Risk Calculator — the first one in the country tailored for Black men. We also proved that the Prostate Health Index assay works differently in Black men than it does in white men and should be used differently. That was key,” he said. Key to a disease that has also impacted him. “I have a family history of prostate cancer, from my father and grandfather and Godfather who died of prostate cancer,” he said. “His life was cut short, too young from cancer. And so I understood why this legacy was important, why this award was important, because we were growing attention to disparities in cancer, that a lot of the diseases that you see in cancer affect minority communities more strongly, more harshly, with higher mortality rates, worse treatment outcomes,” Murphy said. In hopes it impacts all of us a little less.
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US News & World Report
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Long COVID Hits the Young Harder Than the Old, Study Finds
It might sound counterintuitive, but new research shows that when Long COVID strikes, younger patients appear more prone to severe symptoms than older folks. “The impact of Long COVID is causing disproportionate morbidity [illness] and disability in younger adults in their prime who provide much of the workforce, productivity and innovation in our society,” said Igor Koralnik. He co-directs the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center, in Chicago. According to the researchers, neurological symptoms of Long COVID can include headache, numbness and tingling, problems with smell and taste, blurred vision, depression, anxiety, insomnia, fatigue and a decrease in cognitive function. “While deaths from COVID-19 continue to decrease, people still get repetitive infections with the virus and may develop Long COVID along the way,” said Koralnik, who is also chief of neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine. “Long COVID is causing an alteration in patients’ quality of life,” he said. “Despite vaccinations and boosters, about 30 percent of COVID patients develop some Long COVID symptoms.”
