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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Why everyone should wear an eye mask to bed
Any light making it into our retinas at night can harm our health and ability to function the next day, according to The Washington Post. The solution? Eye masks. Wearing an eye mask can benefit your sleep cycle in many ways. Phyllis Zee, MD, PhD, a neurologist and director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, found light at night to be less detrimental for healthy individuals, according to The Washington Post. If it’s difficult to create a completely dark environment to sleep in, so Zee offers several tips. Getting an eye mask and using blackout curtains can really help create a dark sleep environment. Putting away electronic devices also gets rid of unwanted light. Getting light during the day may also help to improve sleep. To offset detrimental effects of light at night, try getting more light during the day to improve sleep, Zee said.
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New York Times
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The Link Between Birth Control Pills and Sex Drive
The connection between the birth control pill and sexual desire has been complicated from the start. The pill is known for having ushered in a sexual revolution, and yet for some, the cocktail of hormones that prevents pregnancy can also dampen libido. A loss of sexual desire can manifest in a variety of ways, said Lauren Streicher, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Anecdotally, Dr. Streicher has found that some women might feel changes to their libido within weeks of starting the pill, while studies have found that, for others, it can take months or years for a shift to happen. For some, it might start off with the loss of the spontaneous desire for sex and then evolve into a lack of arousal in response to stimuli, she said. And some people on the pill develop a condition called hormonally mediated vestibulodynia, in which the tissues at the opening to the vagina become dry, painful and “very pale,” Dr. Streicher said. A 2002 study found that those who used oral contraceptives had a higher likelihood of developing these physical symptoms than those who didn’t use the pill, though the overall risk remains low. “If somebody has vestibulodynia, they’re going to lose their libido,” Dr. Streicher said, adding, “If your vagina hurts like crazy, then your brain is going to say ‘I don’t want to do this.’”
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WebMD
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Neuroticism Isn’t Funny and May Impact Your Health
In real life, neuroticism has been linked to poor health, and today, more science supports that link. “There’s a lot of evidence now that personality traits are related to a whole host of health outcomes,” said psychologist Daniel Mroczek, PhD, director of personality and health at Northwestern University. Neuroticism, in particular, appears problematic. People high in neuroticism generally see the world as distressing and unsafe. They can be moody, tense, and prone to sadness. Research suggests that neuroticism raises the risk of mental disorders such as depression and anxiety as well as physical illnesses like heart disease and some cancers. Still, some researchers have suggested that heightened attention to troubling symptoms could potentially benefit neurotic people. After all, if you have that suspicious mole checked out early – and it actually is cancer – that cautious attitude could save your life. In a 2023 study, Mroczek and colleagues discovered that neurotic people are indeed more likely to visit their family doctors. Yet, evidence linking “healthy neuroticism” to better health outcomes is slim, Mroczek said. When he and his colleagues looked at data from 15 studies involving almost 50,000 people, they discovered that healthy neuroticism didn’t lower the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease.
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Inside Higher Ed
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How Many Casualties Would a Plagiarism War Cause?
The heavy pressure academics are under to keep publishing fuels the problem of plagiarism, however widespread it may be. Yet, being able to detect every instance of plagiarism is near impossible. Millions of papers are being published per year and expecting a human peer reviewer to discern every instance of plagiarism is unrealistic. Some academics said that peer review—the traditional process when journals invite scholars in the field of a submitted article to review it, suggest edits and consider whether it should be published at all—doesn’t involve much checking for plagiarism. They said peer reviewers don’t have enough time for that and aren’t expected to do it. Mohammad Hosseini, PhD, an assistant professor at Northwestern University and an associate editor of the Accountability in Research journal, wrote in an email that peer reviewers “are volunteers and already under a lot of pressure. Expecting them to also check citations is not realistic.” He said it’s “also unreasonable to expect dissertation committees to check every single citation because dissertations might have hundreds.”
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HealthDay
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Non-White U.S. Kids Get Worse Pediatric Care
Pediatric care for kids who aren’t white is worse across the United States, a new study finds. Racial inequities for children of color are pervasive, extending from neonatal care, emergency medicine and surgery to treatment of developmental disabilities, mental health issues and pain, researchers say. “We now have more evidence than ever that pediatric care in the U.S. is not only disparate, but inequitable for a large group of children,” said senior researcher Nia Heard-Garris, MD, an assistant professor of advanced general pediatric and primary care at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Overcoming these health inequities borne of structural racism will require policy changes across multiple sectors of society, including housing, health insurance and the criminal justice system, the researchers concluded. In the ER, minority children experienced differences in wait times, triage assessment and the evaluation of suspected child abuse, researchers found. Black and Asian children are less likely to receive a timely diagnosis with a developmental disability before preschool or kindergarten, and Hispanic children with special health needs receive fewer specialist services.
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The Washington Post
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This $10 purchase can improve your sleep and boost your brain health
Research has shown that even relatively dim light when we snooze — about the equivalent of a hallway light — can have surprisingly profound physiological effects, raising heart rates, reducing the duration of important sleep stages and increasing insulin resistance. In older adults, any light exposure at night was associated with higher rates of obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Thankfully, there is a simple solution: Wear an eye maks when you sleep. “Light at night is telling the brain ‘danger, danger,’” because the brain isn’t expecting it. This may rev up the brain’s autonomic “fight-or-flight” system, which could make it harder to go into deep sleep, said Phyllis Zee, MD, PhD, a neurologist and director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. Zee also said that because many people work indoors, they get less bright light during the day, which can make a person more sensitive to light at night. Reducing light at night is just one part of a healthy light diet. “As a doctor, I tell my patients if you cannot be in the dark” at night, “then make sure you get more light during the day,” which can partially offset the detrimental effects of light at night and improve sleep, Zee said.
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New York Times
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How Much Water Do I Need to Drink?
Whether you’re drinking from a trendy tumbler or a plain old glass, there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to how much water you should drink in a day. Water is, of course, crucial for our survival. It helps us eliminate waste, maintain blood pressure, regulate body temperature and more. Some people need more water than others. People who are especially active — who have physically demanding jobs or who exercise a lot — lose more water through sweat and will need to compensate by drinking additional water, said George Chiampas, DO, an emergency medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine and the chief medical officer for the U.S. Soccer Federation. People may also need to drink more if they live in hot climates, have larger bodies or lots of muscle mass, have loose stools, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or have had kidney stones or recurrent urinary tract infections, experts said. Most people are unlikely to drink too much water, but it is possible, especially among endurance athletes who drink lots of water quickly, Dr. Chiampas said. Doing so can disrupt the body’s balance of sodium and potassium and lead to potentially fatal water intoxication.
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WebMD
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Coronavirus in Context: Why “Caution Fatigue” May Be Causing More COVID Cases
Caution fatigue might be increasing cases of COVID-19. Jacqueline Gollan, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said, “As people are striving to keep up with safety guidelines and keeping themselves safe, they may find it difficult to stay on high at-risk alert, and caution fatigue may emerge. And it’s really the low motivation or interest in taking safety precautions.” She continues to explain that when decreased sensitivity to warnings may occur, but taking regular precautions for COVID-19 is important. “It is always a good strategy to go with best expert advice, as well as to remind yourself, as much as you can, to instigate these in your daily routine. So hanging a mask on the doorknob of your front door would remind you to wear the mask when you go outside. Putting up little post-it notes in your home to remind you to wash your hands as you come in and out of your home environment, and so forth. I don’t think that we are bombarding people with too many messages about how to take precautions. In public health, being reminded is a good thing,” Gollan says.
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ABC 7 Chicago
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Cancer expert weighs in on Lloyd Austin prostate cancer diagnosis, statistics for minority groups
Prostate cancer is back in the headlines after word that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized with complications from prostate cancer surgery. Song Jiang, MD, PhD, urologic oncology expert at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, joined ABC 7 Chicago to provide insight on Secretary Lloyd Austin’s recent hospitalization. Jiang stated that the complication Secretary Austin may have experienced was a known possibility, though less than 5% of cases experience any complications. Statistics show that black men, like Secretary Austin, are 70 percent more likely than white men to develop the disease. Jiang stated, “For black men and men with a significant family history of prostate cancer, they indeed are at an elevated risk. As a sort of specialty, we recommend earlier screening for these men as early as their mid-40s to allow them to detect cancer earlier on.”
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WGN Chicago
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Dry January not working out? Try switching to ‘damp January’
If putting down the booze entirely hasn’t proven sustainable for you, health experts suggest taking a softer approach. “Damp January” may be easier to pull off, and yields many health benefits from cutting back on alcohol. The CDC and National Cancer Institute have also tied alcohol use to an elevated risk of several types of cancer, including mouth and throat, larynx, esophagus, colon, liver and breast. For many people, the idea of cutting back is less intimidating than cutting something out altogether. “The key thing with alcohol is moderation,” said Jeffrey Kopin, Chief Medical Officer for Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital and clinical assistant professor of general internal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in an interview. “If you want to have a drink it’s OK, but don’t have too many drinks.” Heavy drinkers should talk to their doctor about best ways to cut back, said Berki. But for most people, even just small changes can make long lasting impacts. “Don’t overthink it,” said Kopin. “If you’re drinking in moderation, if you’re drinking in a way that’s appropriate for you, it’s fine. There’s no health reason not to do that, unless you have an underlying medical condition that says you shouldn’t be drinking at all.”
