How big was your family a couple of generations ago? Dial things back a half a century and you’d see that having 3 or 4 kids was pretty much average in America. Now, having 2 kids or fewer is the norm. What happened? Are we less fertile? I know what you’re thinking: so what if modern...Continue reading
Category: Policy
Using a Video to Empower Patients Facing Major Surgery
How can patients about to undergo major surgery effectively communicate their wishes for care after their operations? Feedback from patients and family members led researchers to revise their plan for testing a tool to promote advance care planning. When you think of a state fair, you’re likely to envision a large Ferris wheel, game stations,...Continue reading
Make a Difference–Be Part of the Healthy Aging Research Study
If you are between the ages of 45 and 80, please consider volunteering for our Healthy Aging Research Study. This is a collaborative project organized by faculty at Benedictine University & Fairleigh Dickinson University. The goal of our research study is to investigate how an individual’s dietary and lifestyle choices affect wellness, including hormonal/sexual functioning...Continue reading
When it Comes to Minorities, Improving Men’s Health Improves the Health of the Whole Community
With the launch of President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative in 2014, many of the issues facing young African American men suddenly hit the front pages. However, there has been an unfortunate tendency to look at African American men’s health issues as narrowly affecting only that particular group. The reality is quite different. Health problems...Continue reading
The Beat Goes On and On and On
An electrical engineer at Stanford University has devised a way to wirelessly transfer energy deep inside the body where it can be used “to run tiny electronic medical gadgets such as pacemakers, nerve stimulators or new sensors and devices yet to be developed,” according to a University press release. The goal is to create “electroceuticals,”...Continue reading
The Tracker Solution
If you’ve ever had an EKG or EEG, you know how uncomfortable all those wires, pads, and tape can be—especially if you’ve had to stay connected overnight. Well, all that discomfort may be a thing of the past, thanks to researchers at Northwestern University who have created a thin, comfortable patch that wirelessly sends all...Continue reading
Yep, There’s a Test for That, Part 3: Dementia
In Part 2, we talked about a new test developed at Washington University in St. Louis that uses biomarkers in urine to screen for kidney cancer. On the other side of the world, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have identified a different biomarker—this one in a simple blood—that may predict a person’s risk of...Continue reading
Critical Health Care Issues and Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a federal law that has an impact on every American citizen. The bill requires all of us to either have insurance or pay a penalty. If you already have health insurance, Obamacare may substantially change the type of coverage you have, the benefits you receive, and...Continue reading
Yep, There’s a Test for That, Part 2: Kidney Cancer
Kidney cancer is one of the 10 most common cancers for both men and women (although for women, it’s number 10, for men, number 7). More than 60,000 Americans (2/3 are men) are diagnosed with kidney cancer every year, and 14,000 (again, 2/3 are men) will die. The good news is that, caught early, about...
Yep, There’s a Test for That, Part 1: One Drop, Results in 90 Minutes
Remember the expression, “there’s an app for that”? That’s soooo 2014. Sure, apps are still everywhere, but new expression we’ll be hearing a lot in the years to come is, “there’s a test for that.” A new test invented by scientists at the University of Queensland (Australia) uses a single drop of fluid to detect...Continue reading