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.

  • U.S. News & World Report

    A Patient’s Guide to Gestational Diabetes

    Gestational diabetes in the mother also leads to a higher risk a child will go on to develop prediabetes – a precursor to Type 2 diabetes – according to research published in the journal Diabetes Care. The research focused on the incidence of what’s also referred to as impaired glucose tolerance, and found this in 10.6 percent of children ages 10 to 14 of mothers who had untreated gestational diabetes. “What we found is that impaired glucose tolerance is significantly more frequent in those whose mothers had gestational diabetes,” says Dr. Boyd Metzger, the study’s corresponding author and a professor emeritus of endocrinology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

  • Yahoo! News

    Parents Under Investigation After Refusing Chemotherapy for Their Son With Cancer

    Doctors caution against relying on natural methods to cure cancer. A 2017 study found that those with cancer who chose an alternative approach were 2.5 times more likely to die than those who stuck with conventional medicine. In an essay for Stat News, Suneel Kamath, hematology/oncology fellow at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, argued for an approach that incorporates alternative techniques like meditation, diet and acupuncture alongside traditional medicine.

  • Chicago Tribune

    2 Illinois universities launch twins research project

    Two Illinois universities are putting together what they say is the first database to focus on twins in the state. Northwestern University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say in a news release they’re launching the Illinois Twins Project. Researchers will compile information from twins and other multiples in Illinois between from birth until they turn 17 years and will be a scientific resource for researchers interested in how genes and environment influence twins and other multiples. And it will allow them to examine differences between identical and fraternal twins.

  • TIME

    Heart Problems Are Killing More Americans—Even Younger Ones. Here’s How to Reduce Your Risk

    The most dramatic increases were among black Americans, the researchers found. Those increases may be at least partially due to the epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, says co-author Dr. Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor of cardiology and preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “The growing prevalence of obesity and diabetes is now outweighing the progress we’ve made,” in terms of medications, treatments and surgical procedures.

  • HealthDay

    Many Kids With Chronic Illness Are Still Happy: Study

    Researchers found that among more than 1,200 5- to 9-year-olds, those with some of the most common childhood ills were no less happy with their lives than other kids. They said the findings highlight an important point: Kids aren’t “defined” by their medical issues. “This can help broaden our perspective of what ‘health’ is,” said lead researcher Courtney Blackwell, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

  • Reuters

    U.S. government website for comparing doctors lacks data on most MDs

    “The group that does is the `army of the willing’ and likely early adopters in the quality movement,” Arora, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “More robust uptake would likely require mandatory reporting, financial incentives, and also improved ease of reporting using electronic health records to avoid adding increased burden to physician practices.” Currently, there are no meaningful, publicly available data for patients to use in assessing physician performance and quality, said Dr. Karl Bilimoria, director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center.at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

  • National Public Radio

    From Gloom To Gratitude: 8 Skills To Cultivate Joy

    When she agreed to be a participant in the study, it was a way to reach out for help. She knew she couldn’t change her circumstances, but she wanted to learn to cope better. “When you’re experiencing a lot of stress, it’s easy to head into a downward spiral,” says Judith Moskowitz of Northwestern University. She is trained as a psychologist and studies the ways positive emotions can influence people’s health and stress. She developed the program taught to the caregivers. As part of her research, hundreds of stressed-out people have taken the five-week skills class, including women with breast cancer, people newly diagnosed with HIV, people managing Type 2 diabetes and people with depression.

  • NBC News

    Feds: A popular drug from the disco era is making a deadly return

    “Absolutely, there is a generational piece to this,” said Hans Breiter, a Northwestern University psychiatry professor and one of the world’s leading experts on how cocaine stimulates the human brain. Today’s narcotics abusers may be turning to cocaine in part “because there’s been a lot of bad press about other drugs,” Breiter said. Just like the generation that dealt with the horrors of AIDS was followed by another that was less afraid of the scourge and thus more likely to have unprotected sex, today’s drug users aren’t afraid of cocaine like they should be, he said.

  • Reuters

    Happiness training may ease dementia caregivers’ anxiety, depression

    In a randomized, controlled trial, researchers showed that a six-session online training program produced modest improvements in caregiver anxiety and depression, according to results published in Health Psychology. “Caregivers have high rates of burden and distress and depression,” said the study’s lead author, Judith Moskowitz, a professor and director of research at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. “There are programs out there to help them but those usually have to do with education on how to deal with the actual care activities.”

  • Yahoo! News

    People love coffee and beer for the buzz, not the taste: study

    The truth may be that our preferences for caffeine or alcoholic beverages — or indeed sugary sodas — derive not so much from the way they taste but how they make us feel, according to a new study by genetic scientists at Northwestern University that was published in Human Molecular Genetics on Thursday. In her latest work, Marilyn Cornelis, who has published previously on the genetics of coffee consumption, set out to determine which taste genes are responsible for what we drink, she told AFP. But to her and the team’s surprise, people’s preferences weren’t based on variations in taste genes but rather the genes that are related to the beverages’ mind-altering effects.