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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TIME
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A Sudden Loss of Wealth Increases Your Chances of Death
In the study, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA, researchers examined how losing financial stability impacts a person’s health over time. Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and her colleagues looked at more than 8,700 people, ages 51-61, who were participating in a national study. The researchers looked at how experiencing a “negative wealth shock”—defined as losing 75% or more of their total asset value, including things like a pension, home or business, over two years—affected a person’s mortality.
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The Washington Post
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The grave health consequences of a personal financial catastrophe
A mounting body of evidence suggests a link between financial setbacks and ill health, and there’s growing interest from traditional health-care players in the nonmedical factors, such as economic security, that shape people’s well-being. Researchers have used the Great Recession as a natural experiment to study the effects of losing wealth and found losses associated with depression, anxiety, suicide, higher blood pressure and substance abuse. “What’s interesting is we find that someone’s starting point — whether your net worth is $50,000 or $500,000 or $5 million — it doesn’t seem to matter in terms of health risk. Losing 75 percent or more of that creates that increased risk of mortality,” said Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who led the study.
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Reuters
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Going broke midlife tied to increased risk of premature death
“Having wealth and losing it suddenly carries almost the same risk for premature mortality as never having wealth,” said lead study author Lindsay Pool, a researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Poverty has long been linked to an increased risk of an early death, Pool said by email. Previous research also suggests that a sudden reversal of fortune may contribute to chronic stress, depression, anxiety and high blood pressure, all of which are independently associated with a greater risk of dying young.
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National Public Radio
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Financial Ruin Can Be Hazardous To Your Health
An analysis involving more than 8,000 Americans found that those who suffered a “negative wealth shock” — defined as losing at least 75 percent of their wealth in two years — faced a 50 percent increased risk of dying over the next two decades. “That was surprising,” says Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University. “A 50 percent increased risk of mortality over a 20-year period is a lot.” The study is the first to find an association between financial catastrophes and an increased risk of dying in the long term, Pool says.
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Chicago Tribune
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1 dead as outbreak related to synthetic pot use hits 38 people in Illinois
There is a statewide ban on specific formulas of synthetic marijuana but manufacturers could be slightly changing the formula to sidestep the law and get the products sold, said Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the public health department. Those who have been hospitalized obtained the products in convenience stores, from dealers and friends, she said. Consumption of synthetic cannabinoids previously has caused serious health problems such as seizures and kidney failure, but the side effect of severe bleeding is tied to the recent outbreak, said Dr. Patrick Lank, a medical toxicologist who works at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Most of what we are seeing is spontaneous bleeding of the gums or nose, in the stool and urine,” he said.
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Reuters
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Obesity, overweight tied to shorter life, more years with heart disease
Extremely obese middle-aged men had almost triple the risk of having a heart condition or dying from it, compared with normal-weight men, and extremely obese middle-aged women had more than twice the risk of normal-weight women. “Our data clearly show that obesity is associated with a shorter, sicker life with more cardiovascular disease and more years lived with cardiovascular disease,” said lead study author Dr. Sadiya Khan of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
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Chicago Tribune
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More people are seeking out mental health care, but psychiatrists are in short supply: ‘It’s getting worse’
Where and what psychiatrists end up practicing after their four-year residency ends matters most in addressing the shortage, said Dr. Sidney Weissman, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Many decide it is in their financial interest to go directly into private practice rather than continue collecting a resident stipend for a fifth year as they train in a subspecialty where the need is most dire, such as geriatric or child and adolescent psychiatry, Weissman said. He advocates letting psychiatrists train in a subspecialty in their fourth year of residency to make it more economically viable.
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HealthDay
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Well-Done Meat May Not Be Good for Your Blood Pressure
Research suggests that cooking to the point of “charring” is the main issue, said Linda Van Horn, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association who was not involved in the study. The process produces chemicals that are not normally present in the body, explained Van Horn, who is also a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Those chemicals include heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
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U.S. News & World Report
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School Nurses at Ground Zero for Food Allergies
Ninety-six percent of the nurses said school staffers had been trained on how to handle severe allergic reactions to food. And 80 percent said their school had an emergency epinephrine auto-injector available to treat potentially life-threatening allergic reactions. “We were encouraged to see high rates of epinephrine availability in schools,” said senior study author Dr. Ruchi Gupta, of Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “This is significant improvement over the last decade. We also saw that epinephrine was available more often when schools had full-time nurses.
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Reuters
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Doctors endorse counseling of some kids, young adults to prevent skin cancer
The trouble with asking all adults to do self-exams is that people may miss abnormalities that need treatment and they may be more likely than doctors to discover something that appears troubling but is actually harmless, said Dr. June Robinson, coauthor of an accompanying editorial in JAMA and a researcher at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “It may make some people unduly anxious and result in needless skin biopsies,” Robinson said by email.
