Latest news with #NorthwesternMedicine
CBS News
6 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Chicago area doctors expect more hospital visits from tick bites this summer
With all the rain lately in the Chicago area, hospital systems such as Northwestern Medicine reported an increase in patients getting sick from ticks. This comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the summer of 2025 is shaping up to be one of the worst tick seasons in years. Multiple doctors and experts say it is all due to climate change. CBS News Chicago reported on the warnings about ticks back in May and June. But now, it is becoming apparent that the increase in ticks and tick bites is corresponding to emergency room visits in Chicago and the rest of the Midwest. Rain and humidity are the perfect storm for pests like ticks to thrive. Dr. Alfredo Mena Lora of Saint Anthony Hospital said he, along with other doctors, anticipate seeing more patients this summer on account of ticks. "It's one of those things that we expect, especially as the warm months continue, and the exposure become more cumulative," sand Mena Lora. CDC data show in 2023, out of 100,000 emergency room visits in the Midwest, 51 patients were going in for tick bites. That number went up to 56 last year, and is now at 85 this year. The reasons behind it, doctors say, are environmental factors. "We are having milder winters, wetter springs, which means for longer tick breeding seasons. We're also seeing ticks move into geographic areas where we have not seen them before," said CBS News Medical Contributor Dr. Celine Gounder, "and all of this adds up to more tick exposure and more tick bites." Doctors say ticks transmit more viruses and diseases that any other member of the animal kingdom in the world — so this is a serious public health concern. People can get Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and a slew of other illnesses. "I think the main thing that patients and the public want to know is that if you've been bitten by a tick, it could carry a condition, and that condition is a typically a febrile condition," said Dr. Mena Lora, "so you may have fevers, you may have a rash, you may have joint pains." This year, 26 people in Cook County have already been diagnosed with Lyme disease. A total of 58 contracted the disease in Cook County last year. Dr. Mena Lora said while ticks can bite people in the city, they are more prevalent in the neighboring states of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan, and in wooded areas. He reminded people to wear clothes that cover arms and legs, do a tick check, and take a shower upon arriving at home. Anyone who finds a tick should use tweezers to take it out. "If we protect ourselves and take all preventative measures, we can still enjoy our summer," said Dr. Mena Lora. CDC data show the Northwest is seeing vastly more emergency room visits for ticks than the Midwest. The Chicago Department of Public Health said while it has not seen an increase in Lyme disease cases, it does expect to see more emergency room visits this summer.
Chicago Tribune
7 days ago
- Health
- Chicago Tribune
Northwestern Medicine research finding opens the door to a viral link to Parkinson's disease
A Northwestern Medicine research lab has found a usually harmless virus in brain samples from Parkinson's patients. The idea that Parkinson's could be linked to a virus had been theorized for years, but this is the first study to pinpoint a specific virus as more common in Parkinson's patients. 'The message that we want to give to the general public is, it opens a new field of investigation, something that we didn't know about,' said Dr. Igor Koralnik, Northwestern's chief of neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology and lead author of the study. Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder caused by the loss of neurons that produce dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain. Why these neurons break down is unknown, but it's thought that this breakdown is caused by many factors, both genetic and environmental. The team used a tool called ViroFind, which is able to test samples for all known viruses that infect humans much quicker than the usual one-at-a-time 'brute force' method. The lab found human pegivirus, or HPgV, in 5 of the 10 Parkinson's-affected brains they tested, and none of the brains without Parkinson's. 'Fifty percent of any population having this virus would be very, very high,' Barbara Hanson, the lab's post-doctoral fellow, said. Estimates calculate HPgV as being present in about 5% of blood donors in North America, and people with healthy immune systems generally lose the virus within two years of exposure. It is not known to cause disease in humans, so most who catch the virus will never know they had it. Before this study, Hanson said, HPgV had not been found in human brain tissue. It was understood to primarily 'live' in blood. 'For this virus to be present in the brain, there must be a reason for that,' Koralnik said. This doesn't mean that the virus itself is a trigger for Parkinson's, though. It could be that an as-yet unidentified genetic mutation that makes people susceptible to Parkinson's, also allows for the virus to spread throughout the body differently than in people without the mutation. And even if further research shows HPgV as a direct cause of Parkinson's, both Koralnik and Dr. Danny Bega, medical director of Northwestern's Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center, said people shouldn't necessarily worry about getting HPgV. A patient likely has to encounter a couple of different factors before they develop Parkinson's, Bega said. He puts it in terms of 'hits' — a hit could be genetic, or it could be environmental, such as exposure to a virus or pesticide. These 'hits' build up over time until there are enough factors to cause the neuron degeneration specific to Parkinson's. It's possible that this is why Parkinson's risk increases with age, Bega said. The longer you live, the more of these 'hits' you take, as you encounter different Parkinson's risk factors throughout your life. 'I always caution people who try to blame their Parkinson's on one thing,' he said. 'Rest assured, it's never one thing that you could have done or should have done differently.' The work to treat and hopefully one day prevent Parkinson's is being done through finding these factors and eliminating them one by one. 'The more targets that we have, the more likely we are to be able to achieve a treatment that actually can slow things down,' Bega said.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Northwestern Medicine launches program for patients with obesity concerns who are planning a pregnancy
CHICAGO — Northwestern Medicine has launched a program to help patients who have concerns related to obesity and are planning a pregnancy. Women with higher levels of body fat sometimes struggle to conceive and can face greater health risks during pregnancy. The PEARL program, which stands for Preconception and Early Assessment Care Rooted in Lifestyle Management, aims to help these patients have safe and healthy pregnancies. Dr. Christina Boots, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist and one of the clinicians in the program, estimates that about one-third of her infertility patients struggle with obesity. 'There's many more beyond that, who maybe don't meet the criteria for obesity, but are struggling with overweight or insulin resistance and prediabetes or any other metabolic health dysfunction that could be optimized before we go forward,' she said. The PEARL program is designed to help patients with weight-driven concerns about any stage of pregnancy, from infertility to potential complications during delivery. It's open to patients with a BMI, or body mass index, above 27. BMI is calculated from a person's height-to-weight ratio that can give a quick estimate of total body fat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the average American woman's height to be 5 feet, 3.5 inches; at this height, a patient would have to weigh 157 pounds or more to qualify for the PEARL clinic. 'There's so much weight bias and stigma that goes into weight, and there's a lot of stigma and bias and blame that goes into infertility as well,' Boots said. 'We just thought we could do a better job than what we were in terms of counseling women.' Boots said she and other physicians in the program have been unofficially working with patients on obesity concerns related to pregnancy for a few years. By making it an official program within Northwestern Medicine, clinicians are able to dedicate time to see these patients alongside their usual caseloads. 'We're just making sure that we're blocking out time so that there's always an opportunity for women to get in.' The program currently has four clinicians. Boots addresses how a higher BMI may affect fertility. Dr. Veronica Johnson, an internal medicine practitioner with a specialty in obesity medicine, primarily focuses on preconception weight loss. Drs. Jacqueline Hairston and Michelle Kominiarek, as the two maternal-fetal medicine specialists, address patients who are close to becoming or are already pregnant. Some patients are aiming to lower their BMIs in order to increase their fertility; others are aiming to manage BMI-related issues such as cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose to decrease risk before, during, or after pregnancy. 'The whole purpose of this is to address their concerns, and not to say, 'Hey, you need to lose a bunch of weight,'' Boots said. 'All the women in the program believe that there can be health at every size, and none of us believe that you must lose weight in order to get pregnant or to have a healthy pregnancy at all.' One of Johnson's patients, who declined to share her name because of the personal nature of her treatment, came to the clinic through an internal referral from her Northwestern OB-GYN. 'I knew that, even more than having a child, I wanted to be healthy, and I knew that I was at a weight that was completely unhealthy,' she said. 'I was at my largest weight that I had ever been in my life, and I knew I needed to do something about it.' Johnson's patient knew that she would likely have to go through in vitro fertilization because of her family history. IVF programs often have a maximum BMI limit around 40 or 50 — that's between 230 and 290 pounds at 5 feet 3.5 inches. When the patient first met with Johnson, her BMI was 58; with PEARL's help, she's reduced her BMI to 48 in less than a year. She began IVF in October, and is about to start her fourth cycle. 'It's mainly from an anesthesia perspective that that BMI threshold is there. It's not anything other than that, which is unfortunate, because we're trying to stay away from BMI, but then we're telling patients that you can't proceed with this procedure because your BMI is too high,' Johnson said. Egg retrieval for IVF is often done under 'twilight' anesthesia, where patients are not completely under. Alongside requiring higher dosages of anesthesia, Hairston explained that patients with higher BMIs may already have breathing issues, and in the event of an emergency, the clinic team may not be able to secure their airway. 'I have a couple patients who had a BMI at 55-60, and I've gotten them, over the last year and some change, to lose 70-80 pounds, where their BMI is now less than 50. And they're really excited, and now they're in the place where they're going to proceed with IVF,' Johnson said. While the PEARL program tries to emphasize lifestyle management before pharmaceutical intervention, sometimes using weight loss medication is the right choice. 'A lot of times, when patients come to see me, they're like, 'Well, I know how to eat, I know I should be exercising, and I've tried all those things, and it's really hard for me.' And that's when we need to think about other tools to kind of help them get to a healthier weight,' Johnson said. At the same time, the effects of weight loss medications on pregnancies are still unknown. These medications are expected to be used continuously, Hairston said, but since there is not enough knowledge of how these medications affect a fetus, patients are advised to stop using them at least two months before attempting to get pregnant, and to stop using them immediately if they test positive while on the medication. 'Typically for patients with obesity, the recommended weight gain in pregnancy is 11 to 20 pounds. But you can imagine, some of our patients may have lost more than that as a result of these medications,' Hairston said. When patients stop using many of these medications, there is often rebound weight gain; Hairston said that doctors are still discovering how this factors into pregnancy weight gain. Another concern the program hopes to address is the conflict between weight loss goals and the expected weight gain of pregnancy. Regardless of BMI, some weight gain is important for a safe pregnancy. That number is lower for patients with higher BMIs, but weight loss during pregnancy, especially in the third trimester, can adversely affect the baby. Even for a patient who became pregnant with a BMI between 18.5 and 25, which is considered healthy, expected pregnancy weight gain is likely to push them into the overweight category. 'I really think the goal of this program is to be more inclusive in the care of patients with a higher BMI, so that they don't feel like they are being excluded from the pregnancy conversation. And we're excited to meet anyone who wants to meet with us,' Hairston said.
New York Post
08-07-2025
- Health
- New York Post
Seemingly harmless, symptomless virus may actually cause Parkinson's disease: study
While some cases of Parkinson's disease are genetic, the vast majority have no known cause. Now, scientists have discovered that a virus that has flown under the radar for years might be a potential contributor to the neurodegenerative disorder. 'We wanted to investigate potential environmental factors – such as viruses – that might contribute to Parkinson's disease,' Igor Koralnik, the lead author of the study and chief of neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine, said in a press release. Advertisement 3 Researchers at Northwestern Medicine have discovered that a virus that has flown under the radar for years might be a potential contributor to the neurodegenerative disorder. Laura Brown 'Using a tool called 'ViroFind', we analyzed post-mortem brain samples from individuals with Parkinson's and from those who died of other causes. We searched for all known human-infecting viruses to identify any differences between the two groups.' What they found was that the Human Pegivirus (HPgV) — a blood-borne, symptomless virus from the same family as hepatitis C — was present in the brains and spinal fluid of 50% of people with Parkinson's but not in those without it. The findings — published Tuesday in the journal JCI Insight — could be a major breakthrough in unlocking some of the factors that lead to this tricky disease and provide new insight into a virus that was previously considered benign. Advertisement 'HPgV is a common, symptomless infection previously not known to frequently infect the brain,' Dr. Koralnik said. 'We were surprised to find it in the brains of Parkinson's patients at such high frequency and not in the controls. Even more unexpected was how the immune system responded differently, depending on a person's genetics.' 'This suggests it could be an environmental factor that interacts with the body in ways we didn't realize before. Advertisement 'For a virus that was thought to be harmless, these findings suggest it may have important effects, in the context of Parkinson's disease. It may influence how Parkinson's develops, especially in people with certain genetic backgrounds.' 3 What they found was that the Human Pegivirus (HPgV) — a blood-borne, symptomless virus from the same family as hepatitis C — was present in the brains and spinal fluid of 50% of people with Parkinson's but not in those without it. C Davids/ – Blood samples from more than 1,000 people enrolled in the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative, a project launched by The Michael J. Fox Foundation, showed that people with HPgV had unique immune system 'signals' — patterns that appeared both in the bloodstream and the brain. Advertisement 'With the blood samples, we observed similar immune-related changes, mirroring those found in the brain,' Dr. Koralnik said. 'People who had the virus showed different signals from the immune system than those who didn't, and this pattern was the same, no matter the genetics. But as we followed each person over time, we saw a more complicated picture.' In people with a Parkinson's-linked mutation in the LRRK2 gene, the immune system reacted to the virus differently than in those without the mutation — suggesting the virus may interact with certain genes to help set the disease in motion. 3 Blood samples from more than 1,000 people enrolled in the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative, a project launched by The Michael J. Fox Foundation. Getty Images 'We plan to look more closely at how genes like LRRK2 affect the body's response to other viral infections to figure out if this is a special effect of HPgV or a broader response to viruses,' added Dr. Koralnik. Now, the team wants to go bigger, examining more brains to determine how often HPgV sneaks past the blood-brain barrier. 'One big question we still need to answer is how often the virus gets into the brains of people with or without Parkinson's,' said Dr. Koralnik. 'We also aim to understand how viruses and genes interact; insights that could reveal how Parkinson's begins and could help guide future therapies.'
CBS News
07-07-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Northwestern Medicine opens longevity clinic in Chicago
Northwestern Medicine opened a new longevity clinic in Chicago to research and treat aging. The Northwestern Medicine Human Longevity Clinic uses testing to assess each individual patient's unique aging process and then works to prescribe lifestyle changes to help "bend the curve" of aging. Patients get neurocognition, heart, vascular, pulmonary function and musculoskeletal tests, as well as lab work to measure direct biological age and retinal imaging. Then patients meet with a longevity doctor to discuss their results and recommend changes, officials said. If any of the tests suggests or detects an underlying medical condition, the doctors at the clinic will also recommend a referral to a Northwestern medicine specialist so patients can follow up. Patients also meet with an exercise physiologist and a registered dietitian. Then tests are repeated six months after the initial visit to measure progress. The clinic is located in the main Northwestern Medicine campus at 676 North St. Clair Street, Suite 1835. Appointments can be made online.
