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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WebMD
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Ways to Tame Stress When You Have CAD
Stress is something we all deal with. And when you have coronary artery disease, stress management is a key part of taking care of yourself. For all animals — including humans — stress is a basic instinct. It’s the body’s fight or flight response for fending off danger. It presses the “pause” button on our bodily functions and puts all our energy toward the threat at hand. And it’s not always bad. In fact, it might even save your life. “Acute stress is something that we want,” says Alyssa Vela, PhD, a clinical health psychologist in Chicago. “If you didn’t have that reaction in the body, you might just walk out onto Michigan Avenue and not pay attention to any of the cars or buses driving past.” The trouble happens when our stress response is activated around the clock, says Kim Feingold, PhD, Vela’s colleague at Northwestern’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, where their small team helps people adjust after a heart disease diagnosis. That includes managing stress. “Activating our stress response is appropriate and healthy when there’s an impending threat,” Feingold says. “But when we get cut off in traffic, or we’re on hold for a long time with an insurance agent, or we’re getting spam calls at an inconvenient time, or we’re having an argument, our body is not in jeopardy the same way that it was thousands of years ago, when our stress response was created. Yet we continue to activate our stress response in these situations.”
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TIME
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9 Weird Symptoms Cardiologists Say You Should Never Ignore
Cardiologists are sharing the weird symptoms that patients often brush off—but which could actually signal a serious heart problem. These include a sinking feeling in your chest, whooshing in the ear, pain or fatigue in the legs while walking, changes in your feet or legs, jaw or neck pain with exertion, indigestion and nausea, carpal tunnel discomfort paired with shortness of breath, sudden stabbing chest pain and trouble with daily activities. Valvular disease is a growing focus area in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, says Charles Davidson, an interventional cardiologist who’s vice chair of clinical affairs in the department of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. While coronary disease occurs when the arteries that supply the heart become blocked, valvular disease indicates that the heart’s valves aren’t working well. Unlike a sudden cardiac event—say, a heart attack—valvular disease develops slowly, over five to 10 years. Many patients don’t experience symptoms until later in the course of disease, if at all, Davidson says.
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NBC News
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Death threats, legal risk and backlogs weigh on clinicians treating trans minors
Twenty-six states now have restrictions on transgender health care for minors, according to the LGBTQ think tank Movement Advancement Project. The laws have left those still able to provide this type of care, like Goepferd, struggling to keep up with demand. More than a third of transgender teens in the U.S. now live in states with bans on trans health care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project. These restrictions have driven thousands of young people to seek transition-related care out of state, straining resources at the network of gender clinics still open. Three-quarters of the providers NBC News interviewed had waitlists of at least three months, with some as long as a year. Sumanas Jordan, MD, PhD, medical director of Northwestern Medicine’s Gender Pathways Program in Chicago, said her clinic is flooded with calls every time a ban passes. “We actually have a script, because the volume increases so much that we have to have a lot of people help us,” Jordan said, noting that Northwestern’s calendar has remained “constantly full” even as more appointments have been added.
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Yahoo! News
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Everything to Know About Hypnotherapy for IBS, Which Experts Say Is a Legit Treatment
If you’ve ever been seriously worried about something and then ended up with a case of diarrhea, you may have guessed that your mind and gut are as tightly wed as an old married couple. For many people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), that close relationship can look like a revolving door: Anxiety causes constipation, cramps, stomach pain, and diarrhea, which then leads to stress followed by more symptoms—it’s a vicious cycle. The good news is that there are therapies that can break the cycle, including one that often gets some side-eye: hypnosis. If you’re skeptical, keep in mind that this isn’t about some mystic who wants to make you cluck like a chicken. Known medically as gut-directed hypnotherapy, it’s a real thing that’s recommended by experts, particularly for folks with IBS that’s triggered by psychological factors. IBS is officially considered a “disorder of gut-brain interaction,” which basically means there’s a messed up communication somewhere. “As an example, the brain may misinterpret a normal digestive sensation as something abnormal,” Kathryn Tomasino, PhD, a GI psychologist and assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said.
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WebMD
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Knee Osteoarthritis: How to Make Sure The ‘Ouch’ Doesn’t Win
Osteoarthritis is a pain – literally. In many cases, it can make it difficult to walk or get up from a sitting position, and may mess with your sleep and daily activities, especially when it affects the knees. Researchers project that by 2050, knee osteoarthritis cases will increase by almost 75% globally. Although there is no cure, there are things that people can do to get moving again, often without pain and discomfort. The key is to catch it as early as possible. One of the most important risk factors for knee osteoarthritis is age; the disease often makes itself known in adults ages 45 and older as the cartilage – the tissue that pads your bones – wears out. But the role that age plays may be changing. “While age is a major factor, there is a trend of onset shifting to younger individuals,” said Alison H. Chang, PT, DPT, MS, a physical therapist and professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. Other things that can lead to knee osteoarthritis include previous surgeries, higher weight, and disorders of the joints, such as being bowlegged, Chang said.
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New York Times
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A Popular Weight Loss Drug Is Getting a Price Cut
With high demand for drugs like Ozempic, and a limited supply, a novel marketplace has emerged to cater to customers who can’t access them. Dozens of telehealth companies offer online prescriptions for cheaper, compounded versions of these medications. These alternative drugs come in vials, with syringes to draw out each dose, and cost hundreds of dollars less than brand-name options. On Tuesday, Eli Lilly announced that it would start selling low doses of its weight-loss drug Zepbound in vials, too — at a far lower price than its pens, which come with pre-filled doses. The lower-cost offering could expand access for the many people whose insurance plans do not cover the powerful weight-loss medication, said Lindsay Allen, PhD, a health economist at Northwestern Medicine. As weight-loss drugs have grown in popularity, some insurers have restricted access to them or stopped covering them altogether, to get ballooning costs under control. Some estimates suggest that millions of patients have in turn sought out cheaper alternatives to these drugs from compounding pharmacies, which can make copycat versions of any medication the Food and Drug Administration lists as “in shortage.” That includes tirzepatide, the substance in Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro.
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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.
