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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Which means both that food allergies are extremely common — and that millions of Americans who think they’ve got one are probably wrong. Researchers from Northwestern University surveyed more than 40,000 adults between the fall of 2015 and the fall of 2016, asking them whether they had a food allergy of some kind. They also asked questions about what kind of reactions they’d experienced that led them to believe they were allergic to a food or foods.
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The institute is partly funded by a $10 million gift from the Polsky family. Michael Polsky is founder and CEO of Invenergy, and Tanya Polsky, his wife, is a philanthropist and former finance executive. “I think it will be game-changing for patients,” said Dr. Edward Schaeffer, chairman of the department of urology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “They can come to one facility, one physical location, and see all their care providers, get treated from A to Z, start to finish.” The institute also will help physicians and researchers better collaborate in order to fuel innovation, Schaeffer said.
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The Polsky Urologic Cancer Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Streeterville, which opens today, treats patients with urologic cancers, including prostate, bladder, kidney and testicular cancer. The aim is to “provide comprehensive, bottom-to-top care for our patients—before their diagnosis, during their treatment and after care,” said Northwestern Memorial Urology Chair Dr. Edward Schaeffer. Behind the scenes, the gift will be used to expand the program’s research efforts and create novel treatments. “I’m not really a typical philanthropist who just sort of spreads money around,” said Polsky, the founder and CEO of Invenergy. “I like to consider myself an investor in solutions, where whatever I provide sort of relates to me in some way and also can make a lot of difference.”
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Research published Friday in the medical journal JAMA shows over 10% of US adults like Sorensen have at least one food allergy: about 26 million people.
“We often think of allergies as a childhood condition, and we see so many of our children, our young children, developing food allergies,” said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, one of the authors of the study. As the research shows, the problem also affects the adult population. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 4% and 6% of American children are affected by food allergies.
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Using these criteria, the researchers estimated that 10.8 percent of American adults — or more than 26 million people — have an allergy to one or more foods. Another 21 million think they have a food allergy but do not. The report is in JAMA Network Open. “With one in five adults having a negative reaction to a food, it is essential to see an allergist for a diagnosis,” said the lead author, Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern. “Food allergies can be life-threatening, but other food-related conditions may be treatable.”
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“The main message from the survey is that one in five adults have some kind of food related conditions that are causing them to avoid certain foods,” said Dr. Ruchi Gupta of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “And one in 10 has what looks convincingly like a food allergy – and of those, only half are getting a proper diagnosis by a physician.”
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Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who conducted the study, was not immediately reachable for comment. But Dr. Sara Anvari, director of clinical trials of the food and allergy program at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, agreed people should seek a doctor’s clarification. Potentially allergic patients may merely have intolerances to foods like milk, which can be treated, or may require an epinephrine injection in case of serious allergic reactions. The study comes as research emerges for a new peanut allergy treatment that could build some tolerance to peanuts in those who are allergic. Also, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases issued new guidelines in 2017 saying peanut allergies can be curbed by introducing children to the legume as young as early infancy.
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Researchers found that 19 percent of those surveyed thought they had a food allergy. But when the investigators dug into people’s symptoms, they found that only 10.8 percent reported “convincing” signs of a true allergy. Experts said the findings highlight two important facts: Food allergies are common among U.S. adults, and many mistakenly believe they have one. “There are many misconceptions around reactions to food,” said lead researcher Dr. Ruchi Gupta, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, in Chicago. According to Gupta, it can be easy for people to assume food-related symptoms signal an allergy. But other conditions can be the real culprit, she said.
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“Nearly twice as many adults think that they are allergic to foods, while their symptoms may suggest food intolerance or other food related conditions,” lead author Dr. Ruchi Gupta, from Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University, said in a press release. “It is important to see a physician for appropriate testing and diagnosis before completely eliminating foods from the diet.” Nearly half – 48 percent – of food-allergic adults surveyed reportedly developed their allergy as an adult, and only 24 percent said they have a current prescription for epinephrine, a drug used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions, according to the report, published Friday in the JAMA Network Open journal.
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Humans are meant to be outside much, much more than we are. As the AMN (Applied Movement Neurology) Academy puts it, “being outside is in our DNA.” For obvious reasons, we can’t move all our technology-heavy offices outdoors. But we can, for starters, vastly increase the amount of natural light we let in. “Office workers with more light exposure at the office had longer sleep duration, better sleep quality, more physical activity and better quality of life,” Northwestern Medicine and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found in a study. More natural light in the morning especially has beneficial effects for mood, alertness and metabolism.