Media Coverage

We’ve long known that a financial shock causes immediate distress. Suit-clad men leaping from buildings were dismal hallmarks of the Great Depression, and soon after a major recession began in 2007, there were notable spikes in clinical depression, substance abuse and suicides. But what about the effects of such a shock over a more extended period? “Does the stress of losing one’s wealth also create a long-term risk?” asked Lindsay Pool, a Northwestern University epidemiologist and the lead author of the new study. Published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, her research investigated how losing one’s life savings in the short term might curtail one’s lifespan in the long term.

In fact, a lack of financial security among older adults can have a tangible impact on their longevity, according to a Northwestern Medicine and University of Michigan study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that adults ages 51 to 61 at the start of the study who lost more than 75 percent of their wealth in a two-year period had a 50 percent higher risk of dying in the 20 years following. The reason for the relationship between loss and lifespan may be twofold, says Lindsay Pool, the study’s lead researcher and research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. First, chronic stress caused by financial upheaval can have a detrimental impact on health. “Stress is really bad for us when it’s acute and long-term,” Pool says. And second, a loss in wealth may dissuade people from seeking or maintaining necessary health treatments.

The reviews tend to be polarized at five stars or one star, and some are written by people who consulted a doctor but never had the surgery, the study authors note in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. “The interface between patients and physicians continues to evolve in surprising ways as the internet and social media take hold of our everyday lives,” said senior author Dr. John Kim of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Powerhouse Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and smaller Centegra Health System plan to marry after all. The nonprofit health systems, which announced their courtship more than two years ago and have delayed their trip down the aisle more than once, have asked Illinois regulators for permission to merge. Centegra’s three northwest suburban hospitals would join Streeterville-based Northwestern, a seven-hospital system known as Northwestern Medicine, according to new applications filed with the Illinois Health Facilities & Services Review Board. The board decides the fate of health care projects in the state to avoid duplicating services.

“It doesn’t get rid of the stimulus. Your GI tract is still moving. It’s just changing the threshold of perception so you’re not paying attention or feeling it with the same intensity,” says John Pandolfino, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Northwestern, which started offering hypnotherapy in 2006 and has plans to expand to two regional hospitals. Northwestern has trained health psychologists in GI disorders who have moved on to start programs at other academic centers. Sarah Quinton, a gastrointestinal psychologist at Northwestern, conducts the treatments there, along with two other psychologists and students in training.

The effort is part of the University of Washington School of Medicine’s broader “Global Burden of Disease Study” that was created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, where Roth leads cardiovascular disease modeling. The larger study investigated 332 causes of diseases and injuries, and 84 risk factors in 195 countries and territories. Poor diet was the leading risk factor impacting cardiovascular health in the report, making it a “critical target” for improvement, according to an editor’s note by Mark Huffman, associate editor of JAMA Cardiology and associate professor of prevention at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Most women delivering babies in U.S. hospitals are sent home in a day or two, and make an appointment to see their doctor 6 weeks down the road. But the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently released new recommendations that include more follow-ups, more frequent follow-ups, and more individually-tailored care. They’re calling it the “4th Trimester.” We discuss the new guidelines and take questions and comments from listeners.

Featuring: Whitney B. You, MD, MPH, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology (maternal fetal medicine) at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

More often than not, women with postpartum psychosis, and those who’ve considered self-harm, need to be hospitalized so they can be in a protective environment while they wait for medication to kick in, Dr. Crystal Clark, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences with Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, told HuffPost. “For moderate to severe postpartum depression, the gold standard of care is psychotherapy and medication. Someone with milder symptoms may not ever need medication,” Clark said. “Postpartum psychosis absolutely requires medication, you can’t do therapy with this and be done.”

Private genetics companies don’t necessarily seek out underrepresented populations — they serve customers who come to them and typically have enough resources to invest in exploring their genetic makeup. While the cost of genome sequencing has been rapidly coming down over the past decade, some of the services these companies provide can cost hundreds of dollars. “Most of the corporate world doesn’t really have that kind of emphasis,” said Rex Chisholm, a cell and molecular biology professor at Northwestern University who has helped advise the “All of Us” project. “Most of the databases are built on people of European ancestry.”

Most eye melanomas form in the part of the eye you can’t see when looking in a mirror so they can be difficult to detect. To make matters worse, they often present without any early signs or symptoms. “Oftentimes patients are asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis and the cancer is diagnosed on a routine eye exam,” said Dr. Sunandana Chandra, melanoma medical oncologist at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. “That’s why it is so important to see your ophthalmologist regularly.”