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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Yahoo! News
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New Heart-Health Measurement May Help Identify Silent Heart Disease
It’s no secret that your smartwatch churns out all kinds of data on a regular basis, including your daily step count and your average heart rate, which provides helpful insights into your health and wellness. But new research suggests that actually combining those two numbers will give you a better peek into how efficiently your heart is working than each stat does on its own. The researchers are calling this new stat your “daily heart rate per step” or “DHRPS,” and it’s a helpful tool to know about, especially if you’re really dialed in to your heart health. DHRPS isn’t designed to replace your step count or your heart rate numbers, explains Zhanlin Chen, lead study author and a medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Instead, “it’s an integrative measure that uses information beyond step count.” In other words, its a combo of two key metrics that can give you a little clearer insight.
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USA Today
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Acid reflux impacts about 20% of American adults. What causes it?
While the occasional heartburn episode usually isn’t an indicator of anything major, continuous and recurring symptoms may be an indication of a health issue, such as acid reflux, that’s worth consulting your doctor about. Acid reflux is referred to in the medical community as gastroesophageal reflux (GER), or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) for more severe and long-lasting cases. Both occur when the acidic contents of your stomach are regurgitated up into your esophagus, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Most acid reflux an be alleviated with changes in behavior. or others, surgery may be a better option compared to long-term medication usage. Common surgeries, according to Northwestern Medicine, include Nissen fundoplication — in which the upper part of the stomach is wrapped around the lower esophageal sphincter in order to fix a hiatal hernia and prevent acid reflux — or the Linx procedure, in which a metal ring is implanted at the lower esophageal sphincter in order to create a reflux-preventing barrier.
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Yahoo! News
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The Market For Menopause Products Is Booming—But There’s An Easy Way To Find What Actually Works
A couple years ago, whenever a patient came into the office with questions about a new product for menopause symptoms, Traci Kurtzer, MD, an ob-gyn at Northwestern Medicine’s Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause, would get excited and spend hours investigating it. These days, she skips the deep dive. “So many products come out so quickly now, it’s just a fad-of-the-year thing,” says Dr. Kurtzer, who is also a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Doctors also note that the generation of women now entering menopause seems more interested in health and longevity—and they’re being proactive about it. They know what they want, and they’re not afraid to ask for it. That means ravenously consuming information online, including through social media, about what’s happening to their bodies during this major transition, asking their doctors more questions, and seeking better solutions. For products that tout their clinical research, Dr. Kurtzer suggests digging into what that really means—which is actually a lot easier than it sounds. Ideally, a study should have more than 100 participants, and there should be more than one study, because results don’t mean much if you can’t replicate them. She also advises checking to see whether the study is limited to a certain racial or ethnic group—another clue that it might not be robust.
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CNN
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Yawning may be more dangerous than you think, experts say
Find yourself yawning a lot? Do you need that third or fourth cup of coffee to make it through the afternoon at work? Such signs of sleepiness may be a red flag of a serious sleep deficit that could put you in physical danger and harm your long-term health, according to a new position paper by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Not getting a quality night’s rest of at least seven to eight hours has been linked to the development or worsening of diabetes, depression, heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure, obesity and stroke, experts say. “Nodding off in boring meetings is an indication of insufficient sleep. Someone who is fully rested will not fall asleep in meetings, no matter how boring the meeting is,” said sleep specialist Kristen Knutson, PhD, an associate professor of neurology and preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Excessive daytime sleepiness can impair performance and be an indicator of underlying sleep disorders or other issues,” Knutson said via email. “If someone is experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness regularly, they should discuss this with their physician.”
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Yahoo! News
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How a new wearable sensor can track your health — without even touching your skin
Researchers at Northwestern University have developed the world’s first contactless wearable device that can monitor your health by measuring gases naturally emitted and absorbed by the skin without ever touching it. “This technology has the potential to transform clinical care, particularly for vulnerable populations, including newborn babies, the elderly, patients with diabetes, and others with compromised skin,” said Guillermo A. Ameer, ScD, a professor of biomedical engineering who co-led the study. The gadget is tiny — just two centimeters long and one-and-a-half wide — and loaded with sensors that pull in gas samples through a mini air chamber that hovers just above the skin without making contact. “For workers in potentially hazardous environments, it’s helpful to know how much of those hazardous species are entering the body through the skin,” said John Rogers, a professor and researcher at Northwestern who co-led the study. One of the biggest perks of the compact wearable is that it would allow patients to manage their skin health at home, eliminating the need for bulky, traditional hospital equipment. “It’s about predicting overall health, preventing infection and disease, and creating a future where personalized care is driven by real-time, non-invasive continuous health tracking,” Rogers continued.
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WBEZ Chicago
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For accused mentally ill killers and their victims, help comes too little too late
There’s no single entity overseeing the mental health care system in Chicago. That means, for instance, that homeless patients discharged from private hospitals might be given a bottle of medication and told to follow up at a clinic without what experts say should be a “warm hand-off” to a treatment provider.What’s urgently needed, many experts say, is housing to provide the stability people need so they can address their illnesses. Stephen Dinwiddie, MD, chief of forensic psychiatry at Northwestern University’s medical school and a former medical director at Elgin Mental Health Center, says mental illness “by no means is going to be predictive of dangerous and violent behavior.” But he also says it doesn’t mean society can’t prevent those who are mentally ill who might become violent from doing so, especially when they’ve had numerous encounters with law enforcement and clearly need medical treatment. “Had there been the ability to early on adequately treat the mental illness, which was the driver of the other acts, then [the] tragedy would not arise,” Dinwiddie says. “Nobody would be thinking about it because the interventions worked.”
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New York Times
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Is the Secret to Great Sex Sleeping in Separate Rooms?
Sleeping in separate bedrooms a sometimes help with getting better quality sleep. Couples often share a bed because they think they should, but that may not create a space for the best quality sleep. There are also creative ways to “hack” the bedroom, experts said. Earplugs, white noise or separate mattresses and blankets can help, said Phyllis Zee, MD, PhD, a sleep medicine specialist with Northwestern Medicine. Those options may be particularly useful for couples who aren’t able to sleep in separate rooms. However, for couples considering sleeping apart, there is importance in making a plan for how you will prioritize intimacy.
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Yahoo! News
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Here’s What You Should Do If There’s A Measles Case In Your Area
The measles outbreak in West Texas is only getting worse. A second unvaccinated child died of the virus a few days ago, and there are now more than 500 cases in the state with additional cases in multiple states, including New Jersey, New York, Washington, Ohio, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, totaling upward of 600. It’s a scary time to not be sure if you’re fully vaccinated against measles, but there are a couple of things you can do, according to Michael Angarone, DO, an associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. First, you can ask your doctor to run a blood test to see if you have antibodies to measles, he said. If you do have antibodies, that means you’re protected. If you don’t, you can set up an appointment for your shot. If you can’t get the blood test, “The other option is to just get vaccinated. There is not harm in getting an extra dose of the MMR vaccine as an adult,” Angarone noted. If you’re not vaccinated and are able to get the shot, you should get vaccinated.
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US News & World Report
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US Measles Battle Hindered by Confusion Over Health Secretary Response
U.S. pediatricians and infectious disease experts say the fight against rising measles cases nationwide is being hampered by a lack of forceful advocacy for vaccination from government health officials and statements on unproven treatments that are confusing parents. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also made misleading claims about nutrition, vitamin A and other treatments, while exaggerating vaccine risks, even as U.S. vaccination rates are falling. In his Sunday X post, Kennedy promoted the inhaled steroid budesonide, which is used to treat asthma, and the antibiotic clarithromycin. Antibiotics cannot treat a viral infection and using an inhaled steroid to treat measles-related inflammation is risky because it suppresses the immune system, which could make the infection “significantly worse,” said Tina Tan, MD, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Northwestern University and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Rising vaccine skepticism and misinformation have resulted in only 11 U.S. states with vaccination rates of 95% or above – the level needed to protect residents unable to receive the vaccine. The measles vaccine is 97% effective after two doses and 93% after one.
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WebMD
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Future COVID Vaccines Must Be Better; Science Races to Respond
The COVID-19 vaccines were a remarkable medical accomplishment, credited with preventing more than 3 million deaths and 18 million hospitalizations in the U.S. alone in 2 years, but scientists and public health officials say future versions will have to work even better. Current vaccines are best at preventing serious illness, hospitalizations, and death. Improved vaccines would need to up the ante and make infection and transmission far less likely. Other research is focused on how the antibodies generated by the original COVID-19 vaccines may limit the effectiveness of the subsequent booster shots, and what to do about it. “What happens is, those antibodies play a critical role in protecting you against the virus,” says Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, “but those antibodies do the same thing to the vaccine.” His team’s studies have found that antibodies generated by prior vaccines speed up the clearance of the vaccine from the body, making less vaccine available to trigger new immune responses after the booster.
