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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US News & World Report
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Researchers Find a Hint at How to Delay Alzheimer’s Symptoms. Now They Have to Prove It
An experimental treatment appears to delay Alzheimer’s symptoms in some people genetically destined to get the disease in their 40s or 50s, according to new findings from ongoing research now caught up in Trump administration funding delays. The early results — a scientific first — were published Wednesday even as study participants worried that politics could cut their access to a possible lifeline. Despite the study’s small size, “it’s incredibly important,” said Northwestern University neuroscientist David Gate, PhD, who wasn’t involved with the research. NIH’s focus expanded as researchers found more potential culprits. In 2013, NIH’s National Institute on Aging funded 14 trials of possible Alzheimer’s drugs, over a third targeting amyloid. By last fall, there were 68 drug trials and about 18% targeted amyloid. Northwestern’s Gate counts himself among scientists who “think amyloid isn’t everything,” but said nothing has invalidated the amyloid hypothesis. He recently used brain tissue preserved from an old amyloid study to learn how immune cells called microglia can clear those plaques and then switch to helping the brain heal, possible clues for improving today’s modest therapies.
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WGN Chicago
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Measles prevention: How the two-dose regimen works
About 90 percent of the US population has gotten their two dose regimen to protect against measles, mumps and rubella, but increasingly, the unvaccinated have been contracting the highly contagious, deadly disease. Northwestern University and Lurie Children’s pediatric infectious disease specialist Ravi Jhaveri, MD warns that without proper coverage, storm clouds ahead have him worried. “I like to have people think about vaccines as an umbrella, and the idea is an umbrella doesn’t necessarily keep you from getting wet but it keeps you from getting soaked,” he said. “We see periodic outbreaks of measles because it’s a very highly contagious agent and even modest drops in the amount of protection amongst communities can lead to outbreaks.” Decades of research has proven the MMR vaccine is 95 percent effective after the first dose. Experts say now it is more critical than ever to know protection level and potential threat. “More than 90 percent of parents are having their kids vaccinated on time with the appropriate doses by the time their kids enter kindergarten, and so I want to make sure we recognize them for the effort they are doing,” Dr. Jhaveri said. Further, “You should talk to your doctor about making sure you have up-to-date vaccines with the current guidance and we are airing on the side of extra doses,” Jhaveri said.
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Washington Post
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Five years since the pandemic began, covid may now be endemic, experts say
Five years after the pandemic began, covid-19 is now more consistent with an endemic disease, U.S. health experts said. It has become similar to influenza — an endemic disease — in terms of the risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death, experts said. The coronavirus, which causes covid, is now less deadly, though it is more transmissible and is expected to continue experiencing waves, some of which could be severe. If the coronavirus continues to devolve, there may come a time when boosters may not be needed annually, but the frequency needed is not clear, said Rob Murphy, MD, an infectious-disease expert at Northwestern University. While covid-related hospitalizations and deaths are down, surveillance will remain an important tool to keep the coronavirus under control, experts said.
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Yahoo! News
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5 years after the pandemic started, COVID-19 is still around. Masks? Not so much.
Has your COVID-era mask been a constant companion or is it collecting dust? Americans’ relationship with masking has been fraught (and politicized) since the beginning of the pandemic, a time when many balked at mandates to wear them while others wouldn’t leave their home without that level of protection. Mask requirements have largely ceased, and deciding whether to wear one is up to the individual. And some people do make that choice, particularly during cold and flu season, though polling suggests that masks are both less commonplace and a bit less polarizing these days. Rachel Amdur, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University, tells Yahoo Life that while the U.S. is likely not at the same level of comfort with wearing masks in public as countries in Asia, it’s more common now to see people wearing masks in public here than it was before COVID arrived on the scene. Amdur says we “have a long way to go” with understanding how masks work to prevent respiratory illness. In the meantime, she says it’s probably a good idea to wear a mask in public if you have symptoms of an upper respiratory virus — such as nasal congestion, sore throat or fever — or if you’re immunocompromised and in a crowded public space.
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New York Times
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How Healthy Are Eggs?
To many nutrition experts, eggs are golden — one of the most accessible and affordable protein sources available. The scientific community used to be more divided about dietary cholesterol risks, said Philip Greenland, MD, a professor of cardiology and preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. But the Dietary Guidelines for Americans stopped including daily dietary cholesterol limits in 2015, and, in 2019, the American Heart Association published an advisory saying dietary cholesterol (the kind found in eggs) is not a major concern for heart disease. That doesn’t mean people should eat eggs in excess, Dr. Greenland said. Studies that have shown eggs don’t increase blood cholesterol mostly focused on moderate egg consumption — think one egg per day or two every other day, he said. One egg contains more than six grams of protein, which nutrition experts consider high, relative to its 70 total calories. No matter how you prepare them, eggs provide high-quality protein and nutrients, experts said.
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Yahoo! News
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5 years after the pandemic started, COVID-19 is still around. Masks? Not so much.
Even at the peak of the pandemic, how much people masked depended a lot on where they lived, and that’s likely still the case today. Rachel Amdur, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University, tells Yahoo Life that while the U.S. is likely not at the same level of comfort with wearing masks in public as countries in Asia, it’s more common now to see people wearing masks in public here than it was before COVID arrived on the scene. Still, Amdur says we “have a long way to go” with understanding how masks work to prevent respiratory illness. In the meantime, she says it’s probably a good idea to wear a mask in public if you have symptoms of an upper respiratory virus — such as nasal congestion, sore throat or fever — or if you’re immunocompromised and in a crowded public space.
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Chicago Tribune
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Five years ago, COVID gripped the world in fear. Now local scientists, doctors warn Trump’s policies are weakening public health.
Five years ago, reports of the new and mysterious virus emanating from China gripped the globe in terror and uncertainty. As infections spread across continents, humanity raced to better understand the novel coronavirus and prevent its proliferation, with case counts, hospitalizations and deaths climbing rapidly. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the first in over a century. The international agency urged everyone around the globe to work together to alter the course of the virus, which had already touched 114 nations and ended more than 4,000 lives. Many medical professionals will never forget how the virus ravaged their patients and threatened to collapse the health care system not so long ago. They urge the nation to remain vigilant against emerging threats — and to not dismantle the public health strides of the past five years. Marc Sala, MD was working in the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when the pandemic began. Terrified, he and his wife, who is also a doctor, printed off copies of their living wills “in preparation for the fact that we were going to do our jobs at any cost and we wanted to make sure our family was taken care of.” “We just went through hell,” said Sala, who is now co-director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center. “Let’s not forget all the lessons we took from this. This needs to be a learning experience for the next pandemic. If you’re thinking this is a once-in-a-100-years thing, you’re not paying attention.”
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WBEZ Chicago
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Spring forward? Here’s how to ease the time change.
Clocks will “spring forward” as daylight saving time takes effect at 2 a.m. Sunday, meaning we jump ahead one hour. While the extra evening sunlight might be welcome, the lost hour of sleep can leave people feeling groggy and out of sync. Clara Peek said the key to a smoother transition is simple: Plan ahead. “When we adjust to a shift in our circadian phase — like the one hour change when we spring forward — two main factors come into play,” said Peek, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at Northwestern University with 15 years of experience researching circadian clock disruptions. “First, there’s sleep deprivation. Losing an hour of sleep can lead to fatigue, changes in blood pressure and cognitive impacts. Second, there’s the shift in our circadian rhythm itself. What makes spring forward particularly disruptive is that we wake up earlier, which means losing exposure to morning light.” That means Sunday morning will feel darker than usual, as the sun will rise an hour later. To ease the shift, Peek recommends getting outside as soon as possible. “Morning light is a critical signal for our internal clocks. Even if it’s cloudy, being outside provides much more natural light than staying indoors,” she said.
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USA Today
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RFK Jr. touts vitamin A for measles prevention. Doctors disagree.
Late last month, the U.S. had its first death from measles in a decade when a school-aged child died in Texas, the epicenter of a current outbreak. Measles is a vaccine-preventable disease that was formerly eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. The vaccine is usually given early in childhood as the standard set of immunizations required to attend school. Newly-appointed Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of pushing anti-vaccine sentiments, has since urged parents to consider vaccination. He has also, however, touted other measures of prevention and treatment that doctors and health experts say are not medically or scientifically sound. “Vitamin A will reduce measles mortality, and this is especially in low-to middle-income, resource-limited countries where vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition is very common,” Tina Tan, MD, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a professor at Northwestern University Feinberg University School of Medicine, said during a briefing on Tuesday. However, “in persons that are not malnourished, studies have actually shown that vitamin A really has no effect,” she added. Further, you can have too much Vitamin A. Vitamin A toxicity can cause symptoms including, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, joint pain, bone pain, fatigue, skin changes, liver damage, blurred vision and increased intracranial pressure, warned Tan. In children, it can cause developmental problems and other types of neurologic defects.
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Yahoo! News
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Expert: Prevent eczema flare-ups by teaching immune system to tolerate allergenic foods
Contrary to commonly held beliefs, current research shows that cutting out certain foods makes little difference in controlling the skin disease eczema, a renowned U.S. dermatologist said Friday. The latest probes into the complex links between diet, food allergies and eczema — also known as atopic dermatitis — reveal eczema may be better controlled or even prevented by building up tolerances to allergenic foods at an early age, according to Peter Lio, , a dermatology and pediatrics professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Eczema is a chronic disease that usually begins in childhood in which the skin becomes extremely itchy. Scratching it can lead to further redness, swelling, cracking, “weeping” clear fluid, crusting and scaling, according to the National Institutes of Health. Among Lio’s key points at the Orlando conference is that recent studies generally refute long-held “common sense” beliefs held by many eczema sufferers that their conditions must somehow be related to what they eat. “Many patients and families start the visit by explaining that they are convinced that food must be the ‘root cause’ of their eczema. It would be fantastic — and easy — if it were just food causing the eczema. But, in my experience, and more importantly, when carefully reviewing the literature, we find that this very rarely the case,” he told UPI in emailed comments. And yet, food allergies do indeed appear be associated with eczema — but maybe just not in the way commonly believed.
