The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove that fried foods directly impact longevity. Another drawback is that it relied on women to accurately recall everything they ate. Even so, the results offer fresh evidence that how food is prepared can have a big impact on health, said Dr. Clyde Yancy of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Poultry and fish are generally regarded as ‘heart healthy’ dietary choices but the process of frying changes the health consequences,” Yancy, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

A 2017 study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice showed that consumers make “risk assessments” based on the words used in this kind of labeling. “We’re making consumers decide, based on the wording of that precautionary allergen label, what seems safe for themselves or their child, and I think that’s a huge issue,” said Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, a professor of pediatrics at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago and an author of the study.

A xenotransplant, he explained, might allow those children to survive while they await a suitable human organ. Dr. Carl Backer is surgical director of the pediatric heart transplant program at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “There are children born with cardiac disease that we can’t fix,” he said. “The only option is a heart transplant.” Just over 100 babies younger than 1 year undergo a heart transplant in the United States each year, according to Backer. “But probably many more could use one, if a donor heart were available,” he said.

Mrs. Roberts’ son, Mr. Williams, was devastated and terrified. He told her he had suffered too much, and his big sister’s death brought home to him the fact that his life, too, could end at any moment. He wanted to stop the monthly blood transfusions that were easing his symptoms. He wanted to go ahead and die. Then Dr. Alexis Thompson, a sickle-cell specialist at Northwestern University, told Mr. Williams that he could join a new study of gene therapy that might help. There were no guarantees, and there was a chance Mr. Williams could die from the treatment. Mr. Williams was enthusiastic, but his mother was filled with trepidation. In the end, she decided “we’ve got to try something,” she recalled.

A new Northwestern Medicine study was able to successfully predict whether women would experience worsening depressive symptoms within the first year of childbirth by identifying four maternal characteristics that put them at risk. Among them: the number of children the woman has; her ability to function in general life, at work and in relationships; her education level; and her depression severity at four to eight weeks postpartum. “By the time a mother comes in for her six-week postpartum visit, we have the potential to predict the severity of her depression over the next 12 months,” said first author Sheehan Fisher, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in a statement.[…]Northwestern co-authors included Dorothy Sit, Amy Yang, Jody Ciolino and Jacki Gollan. Katherine Wisner was the senior author.