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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MSN online
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Spike mutations that help SARS-CoV-2 infect the brain discovered
Scientists have discovered a mutation in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that plays a key role in its ability to infect the central nervous system. The findings may help scientists understand its neurological symptoms and the mystery of “long COVID,” and they could one day even lead to specific treatments to protect and clear the virus from the brain. The new collaborative study between scientists at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois-Chicago uncovered a series of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (the outer part of the virus that helps it penetrate cells) that enhanced the virus’s ability to infect the brains of mice. “Looking at the genomes of viruses found in the brain compared to the lung, we found that viruses with a specific deletion in spike were much better at infecting the brains of these animals,” said co-corresponding author Judd Hultquist, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) and microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This was completely unexpected, but very exciting.”
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Yahoo! News
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Woman credits 1 exercise for helping her notice warning signs of rare statin complication
A woman was diagnosed with myositis, inflammation of the muscles due to injury, infection or an autoimmune disease. In her case, it was triggered by her body’s reaction to a statin she’d been taking to lower cholesterol. Statins can sometimes cause muscle aches and weakness, but Furlan developed a rare autoimmune response with statin exposure, says Arjun Seth, MD, her neuromuscular specialist and co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Myositis Clinic in Chicago. It meant her immune system was attacking her body. “The muscle was being inflamed. And because the muscle was inflamed, it was causing muscle breakdown; and when the muscle breaks down, people notice that as weakness,” Seth tells. The condition impacted all her muscles, but especially the larger ones in the upper arms and upper legs, including the thighs and quadriceps. Core muscle weakness is another symptom, thus Furlan’s eventual inability to do dead bugs. “The condition ends up being a chronic condition. So it turns into something like diabetes or hypertension where someone needs to be taking a medication lifelong,” Seth says. Patients take immune suppressants to calm down the body’s response. In Furlan’s case, she’s receiving regular infusions of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and the drug rituximab.
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Yahoo! News
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More middle-aged adults have been dying from strokes. Experts cite 3 factors that might be to blame.
In recent years, more adults between the ages of 45 and 64 have been dying from strokes, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked or there’s sudden bleeding in the brain. Unless treated quickly, it can lead to lasting brain damage, long-term disability or death. After declining from 2002 to 2012, stroke death rates for middle-aged adults increased 7% between 2012 and 2019, and increased an additional 12% through 2021, the CDC found. The stroke death rate then fell slightly (by 2%) for men through 2022, and “did not change significantly” for women. Underlying conditions like diabetes, obesity and hyperlipidemia (aka high cholesterol) have increased among middle-aged adults, as have poor lifestyle habits such as alcohol use, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity — all of which are typical risk factors for stroke, experts say. “These risk factors over time lead to atherosclerosis, which is a common cause of stroke in older patients. However, we have seen an increase in these same risk factors leading to stroke in our younger patient population,” Fan Caprio, MD, a vascular neurologist at Northwestern Medicine and medical director for its Comprehensive Stroke Center, tells Yahoo Life. An increase in risk factors, Caprio explains, can lead to more and bigger strokes — which in turn can lead to higher mortality and morbidity.
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Yahoo! News
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Results from hair growth products can vary in the time it takes to notice them. It’s best to address hair loss early — once about half of the hair in a particular area of the scalp is lost, patients tend to notice the problem.
Actress Danielle Fishel has been diagnosed with breast cancer, the Boy Meets World star revealed on her podcast. “I was recently diagnosed with DCIS, which stands for ductal carcinoma in situ, which is a form of breast cancer,” Fishel said. Fishel credits a reminder message for her early diagnosis. “The only reason I caught this cancer when it is still stage zero is because the day I got my text message that my yearly mammogram came up, I made the appointment,” she said. For the most part, doctors treat stage zero and stage 1 cancer the same way. The first step is almost invariably surgery, which Fishel says she plans to unergo. Some women choose to have a complete or partial mastectomy (also called a lupectomy) to remove all or part of the breast tissue. After surgery, if all the cancerous tissue has been removed, most patients will undergo radiation. If testing shows that their tumor is fueled by estrogen, patients may be put on an additional medication that suppresses the hormone and induces menopause. After that, “the vast majority of patients are cured, end of story,” William Gradishar, MD, chief of hematology and oncology and a professor of breast oncology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine explained. The survival rate for DCIS is 98%, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
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Yahoo! News
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The best hair growth products of 2024, according to dermatologists
Hair loss affects millions of people in the U.S., and the impacts go beyond physical appearance. Experiencing air loss can cause stress, lower self-esteem and depression because it’s a deeply personal aspect of body image and self-identity. Understanding why your hair is thinning or shedding is essential to finding the right solution for your hair loss. According to Amy Forman Taub, MD, FAAD, a board-certified dermatologist and assistant professor at Northwestern University Medical School, the most common cause of hair loss is androgenetic alopecia, aka male pattern hair loss or female pattern hair loss. “The second most common is called telogen effluvium and can be caused by many things, including severe stress, childbirth, certain drugs and thyroid abnormalities,” Taub says. Thankfully, in most cases, treating and reversing hair loss is successful with effective hair growth products. Results from hair growth products can vary in the time it takes to notice them. It’s best to address hair loss early — once about half of the hair in a particular area of the scalp is lost, patients tend to notice the problem.
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CNN
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Even before Matthew Perry’s death, experts worried about the ‘Wild West’ of ketamine treatment
Among five people charged in the death of actor Matthew Perry, two are doctors: According to federal officials, one agreed to sell ketamine from his former clinic and the other distributed the drug to Perry and taught his live-in-personal assistant how to inject it. Perry was injected multiple times the day of his death, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said, and an autopsy showed the amount of ketamine in his system had reached the level used for general anesthesia. Steven P. Cohen, MD, a professor of anesthesiology (pain medicine) at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says some ketamine clinics are clearly putting profits before patients. Cohen said the clinics often don’t have a doctor evaluate patients. He’s heard of patients being given 35 to 40 milligrams of ketamine at a time, which may be subtherapeutic — in his experience, it takes about 400 milligrams given over a week effectively treat depression. He says clinics might not monitor patients’ progress, and they’re usually expected to pay cash for each treatment. “It’s disgusting. It’s the Wild West,” he said.
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The New York Times
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Many People Are Eligible for Paxlovid. Who Should Take It?
Most adults in the United States have one condition or another that makes them a candidate for Paxlovid, which can cut the risk of a severe case of Covid. Obesity, diabetes, depression, heart conditions and dozens of other issues all put people at high risk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two years after Paxlovid became widely available in the United States, and in the middle of yet another summer surge, patients and doctors are still frequently confused about who qualifies for the medication and exactly how beneficial it might be. It’s well-established that Paxlovid saves lives. But it can be costly, and it can interact with a lengthy list of medications. Some people avoid the drug, in part because they worry about experiencing a rebound case. One study found that only about 15 percent of people who were eligible for the medication took it when they had Covid. Your symptoms can come back after you recover from Covid, whether you took Paxlovid or not. While Pfizer researchers have estimated that just over 2 percent of people who take the drug experience rebound, outside estimates are closer to 14 percent. But the possibility of symptoms returning should not dissuade people from taking the medication, said Marc Sala, MD, a co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Covid-19 Center in Chicago.
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New York Times
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Late-Summer Travel Plans? You Might Want to Put On a Mask.
It is the height of the summer travel season: Airplanes and cruises are packed, hotels are booked, and travelers are crowding theme parks and attractions. Yet throughout the United States, Covid-19 is currently circulating at very high levels. During the peak of the pandemic, masks were ubiquitous in hotels, airports and other public places. They were required to fly, and many travelers donned them elsewhere to help reduce the transmission of the deadly coronavirus. Since the end of the mandate, and as travel has returned to or surpassed prepandemic levels, most travelers have abandoned preventive measures, particularly masks.“If you have symptoms and you have any question about it, I would wear a mask, just to protect other people,” said Marc Sala, MD, a co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Covid-19 Center in Chicago. Common symptoms of Covid include coughing, fever, sneezing, congestion, headaches, sore muscles, fatigue and gastrointestinal issues. Those who are asymptomatic but have been exposed to Covid may also consider masking. If you have tested positive during a trip but cannot delay traveling, you should wear a mask whenever you are around other people, Dr. Sala said.
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Crain’s Chicago Business
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Long COVID’s brain fog doesn’t lift for years
Neurological symptoms can linger even two or three years following a COVID-19 infection for more than 60% of those who contract the disease, scientists at Northwestern Medicine and the School of Medicine at CES University and the CES Clinic in Colombia have found. Their study found the symptoms of brain fog — cognitive dysfunction — was experienced by 60% of patients and fatigue was experienced by 74%. The two symptoms, along with depression, most affected long COVID patients whether their symptoms were severe or more mild, Northwestern said in a press release. In the longest COVID follow-up in Latin America, Igor J. Koralnik, chief of neuro-infectious diseases and global neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Dr. Carolina Hurtado Montoya with the School of Medicine at CES University in Medellín, analyzed persistent neurological symptoms, cognitive function and quality of life in long COVID patients. The most common symptom of long COVID was fatigue, which 74 out of 100 patients experienced. Many long COVID patients also experienced muscle pain (42%), numbness or tingling (41%), sleep problems (46%) and anxiety (44%).
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TODAY
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Woman shocked when eye freckle turns into melanoma. This was her 1 symptom
Like many people with a freckle in the back of their eye, Debbie Hensley never knew she had one — until it potentially threatened her life. About 5% of Americans have a freckle in the back of their eye, known as a choroidal nevus, which is similar to a freckle or mole people have on their skin, according to the American Society of Retina Specialists. It’s not something a person can see, but is often picked up during a routine eye exam. These pigmented spots are usually harmless, says Christopher Bowen, MD, director of ocular oncology at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, who treated Hensley. “I definitely want to emphasize that most of the time, having a freckle in the back of the eye is not a problem,” Bowen tells. “Only 1 in 8,000 people with freckles in the back of the eye undergo additional mutations that would then cause a melanoma.” Hensley was one of those rare cases. It’s unknown why some of these spots change from benign to cancerous, Bowen notes. Most people know melanoma as the deadliest form of skin cancer, but it can also start in the eye. The best way to monitor any eye freckles is to have regular dilated eye exams with a photo of the back of the eye, he adds.
