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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Heart attacks spike every Christmas. How cold weather, big meals — and yes, family gatherings — raise risks.
It’s no secret that heart attacks are more common around the holidays. Studies like this one from the American Heart Association (AHA), consistently find that more people in the U.S. have and die from heart attacks on Christmas Day than on any other day of the year. The yearly spike is often blamed on holiday stress. Experts say that stress does contribute to the elevated risks, but there’s more at play. You can’t necessarily feel the ways colder temperatures impact your cardiovascular system, but they’re very real, Patricia Vassallo, MD, a Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine cardiology professor, explained. “The cold weather does affect your biology,” she says. “The blood vessels constrict, and that raises the blood pressure and makes it harder for your heart to pump blood to your body.” While it’s difficult to pin the spike in heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems around the holidays on any one cause, experts agree that stress does play a role. “We often think of the holidays as very fun and happy, but there are lots of people who have lost loved ones, or even are stressed preparing to host a big party” says Vassallo. “Holidays are very stressful for many people and stress, at any time, increases hormones like epinephrine and norepinephrine, which increase the blood pressure and heart rate.” That, she says, can lead to heart attacks or strokes for those already at risk.
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Crain’s Chicago Business
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Northwestern scientists unlock cellular secrets of diabetes drug metformin
Before the explosive popularity of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, another “wonder drug,” metformin, has been at work lowering blood sugar levels for patients with Type 2 diabetes for decades, but scientists did not really know how, exactly, it works — until now, according to Northwestern Medicine. Millions of people take metformin, shown to work on Type 2, as well as evidence that it slows cancer growth, improves COVID outcomes and reduces inflammation, Northwestern said in a press release. Often, the release said, the relatively inexpensive drug is the first line of defense in treating Type 2, with some patients taking it alongside new semaglutides, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro. “This research gives us a clearer understanding of how metformin works,” corresponding author Navdeep Chandel, PhD said in the release. Chandel is an investigator with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This research significantly advances our understanding of metformin’s mechanism of action,” Chandel said in the release. “While millions of people take metformin, understanding its exact mechanism has been a mystery. This study helps explain that metformin lowers blood sugar by interfering with mitochondria in cells.”
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WebMD
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For Happier Holidays, Set Your Expectations – and Breathe
The holiday season is upon us, and with it, a flurry of activities and obligations. There are gifts to buy, parties to attend, cookies to bake, latkes to fry, and families to entertain. The stress can be relentless, and expectations can be off the charts. The solution lies not just in what you think about, but what actions you take. This practice of setting expectations (or setting intentions) is one of the most important strategies that Inger Burnett-Zeigler, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and associate clinical professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, recommends – not only for the holidays, but for daily living. “This is where you start taking care of yourself and are able to examine where lines need to be drawn,” she says. “It can apply to what limits you set if you are financially constrained so you don’t feel stressed about spending. Or what you are willing to do; for example, committing to doing only one part of the cooking and having others take care of the rest.”
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Yahoo! News
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Your winter illness guide: Why norovirus and RSV are on the rise, and what to expect from COVID-19 and the flu
‘Tis the season for gathering inside and being surrounded by loved ones — which, unfortunately, makes it much easier to spread and catch COVID-19, RSV, the flu and norovirus. And it’s not just cuddling by an open fire that puts you at risk: The hallmarks of the winter season, including lower temperatures, low humidity and indoor heating systems, also create the perfect conditions for viruses to thrive, while leaving our dried-out mucous membranes more vulnerable. The most recent CDC data shows emergency department visits related to COVID-19 nationwide as “minimal,” and Robert Murphy, professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life that deaths from COVID-19 have been “hovering between 50 to 60 per day for the past several weeks” — down from around 200 per day in 2023. Flu season typically starts in December, rises significantly in January and February, and then starts to decline in March, “give or take a few weeks,” Murphy says. “We have the peak in the U.S. in late February with influenza,” Weber says. “We can peak as early as November and as late as April or May — but classically, we do peak in late February.”
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Yahoo! News
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Pricey weight loss drugs lose some disciples in 2024
People struggling with their body weight experienced joy when new, more effective prescription drug options became the rage in 2023, but it seems many folks stopped taking them in 2024. Research published earlier this year suggests more than half of those using two of these drugs discontinued treatment within 12 months, perhaps due to the cost and side effects. As a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine, Sadiya S. Khan, MD, MSc prescribes the drugs “to reduce cardiovascular risk.” “This focus on cardiovascular risk is important for the framing and consideration of these medications,” Khan explained. In her view, because of the benefits of weight loss on heart health, the drugs should be considered “cardiovascular meds and not just weight loss meds,” said Khan, a professor at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. “We need to work on national policies to ensure cost and supply are not barriers, such as pharmaceutical coupon cards and assistance programs,” Northwestern Medicine’s Khan said.
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Yahoo! News
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The ones who need little sleep
Everyone has heard that it’s vital to get seven to nine hours of sleep a night, a recommendation repeated so often it has become gospel. Get anything less, and you are more likely to suffer from poor health in the short and long term — memory problems, metabolic issues, depression, dementia, heart disease, a weakened immune system. But in recent years, scientists have discovered a rare breed who consistently get little shut-eye and are no worse for wear. Natural short sleepers, as they are called, are genetically wired to need only four to six hours of sleep a night. “It’s not like there’s something magical about your seven to eight hours,” says Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University, near Chicago. Zee can imagine countless ways that short sleepers’ brains could be more efficient. Do they have more slow-wave sleep, the most restorative sleep stage? Do they generate higher amounts of cerebrospinal fluid, the liquid that bathes the brain and spinal cord, enabling them to get rid of more waste products? Is their metabolic rate different, helping them cycle in and out of sleep more quickly? Zee’s lab, for example, has tinkered with using acoustic stimulation to boost the slow waves of deep sleep that enhance memory processing and may be one of the secrets to short sleepers’ success. In a study, they played pink noise — a softer, more natural sound than white noise, more akin to rain or the ocean — while study participants slept. The next day those participants remembered more in a test of learning and recalling word pairs. “We can enhance memory, but we’re not making them sleep longer or necessarily shorter,” says Zee. “I think there’s a lot more to learn.”
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New York Times
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The Debilitating Toll of Back Pain
Roughly 16 million adults in the United States experience persistent back pain that gets in the way of daily activities. Back pain is among the most common medical problems in the country. It is also the leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Providers sometimes deliver steroid injections to help minimize discomfort. Patients with certain spinal injuries might undergo surgery to decompress nerves or stabilize the spine. People may also turn to treatments like chiropractic care, massage or electro-acupuncture, which some studies have suggested can provide modest relief from chronic back pain. However, some of the treatments themselves, including painkillers and surgery, can exacerbate back pain, said Wellington Hsu, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Northwestern Medicine. “It’s very difficult to predict how someone will react to having surgery, and having trauma to your back as a result of surgery can sometimes lead to even worse pain,” he said.
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WBEZ Chicago
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Saving a life can come down to paperwork and vehicles
Thirty percent of severely injured patients in Illinois aren’t transferred to a high-level trauma center within two hours of being taken to a hospital, which increases mortality. That’s according to a new study from Northwestern that examines the reasons this is occurring and what can be done to improve coordination and communication between hospitals. “Trauma centers are hospitals that are specialized in taking care of the injured patient. And we know from a study done 25 years ago that when people are cared for at these hospitals, they’re more likely to survive. And the entire trauma system specializing hospitals for trauma care started all the way back in 1970s because we realized that Americans were more likely to die on American roadways than they were in combat, ” said Anne Stey, MD, professor of surgery, trauma and critical care at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “The more we can get public support for creating better coordination across hospitals, the more we can get to a safer place with how we provide injury care across the state. And I think this is something that other states have already done…I really encourage people to think about this as a priority and also listen to their paramedics when they make a recommendation as to which hospital to go to because they know, they know.
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Reuters
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Behind UnitedHealth exec’s accused killer, a possible history of back pain emerges
A potential history of back pain emerged on Tuesday as a point of interest in the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder case, based on accounts from two people who knew the suspect and details from his social media profiles. In a hand-written document that has not been verified by Reuters, Luigi Mangione (the individual in custody and facing multiple charges as well as murder charges in New York), said he had a back injury known as an L5-S1 isthmic spondylolisthesis, in which one of the bones in the spine slips forward and presses on the vertebra below it. Wellington Hsu, MD, professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said about 6% of the population has this condition and most people don’t even know it because it typically does not cause pain. About 20% of people with this condition have symptoms, and of those, another 20% may need surgery. A colleague he worked with at Treucar told Reuters Mangione took leave during the middle of 2023 for about two months, a move the colleague’s manager told him was due to back-related issues.
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AP News
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Winter can be a time of culinary abundance. Experts share tips on eating nutritiously
Winter is settling in across much of the U.S., erasing the freshness and vibrancy of months past. But the chilly season doesn’t have to usher in weeks of lifeless, colorless dinner plates. Dieticians and food experts say winter is a great time to experiment with your food, try out underappreciated seasonal produce and cook a healthy meal for loved ones. If fresh options are limited, experts say canned and frozen fruits and vegetables still have a lot of nutritional value, as long as you don’t overcook them. Also make sure they don’t have a lot of added salt or fat. Dried fruits — think apricots, dates and raisins — and nuts are also great to bring into salads, bakes and more. “Without a doubt, there’s a lot of nutritional benefit, even in dried (fruits),” said Linda Van Horn, PhD, RD, a clinical nutrition epidemiologist at Northwestern University. Soups, stews and porridges are another great option for a winter meal. “The benefit of it is that it’s all contained,” Van Horn said, noting nutrients that leak out of the ingredients while cooking stay in the broth. Winter can be particularly isolating for some people, so eat seasonally with friends and family beyond the holidays.
