Research shows that traumatic experiences can shift the physical makeup of our brains, said Shanda Wells, behavioral health manager for Behavioral Health in Primary Care at UW Health. When we encounter life-threatening events, it can change how we react to other things, which makes processing those experiences all the more vital.
Sleep apnea has become more common in recent years, with an estimated 30 million Americans affected by the condition. Interview with Dr. Stacey Ishman from UW Health.
Beth Olson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences in the Department of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently spoke to WPR’s “Central Time” about
Many people brush off measles outbreaks as a problem for the unvaccinated, or dismiss spikes in mpox as an issue mainly for men who have sex with men, Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. And they shrug off just about any epidemic that happens abroad.
UW Health’s Dr. Jeff Pothof joins News 3 Now Live at Four to discuss the importance of being vaccinated against measles.
The announcement Tuesday from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force makes official a draft recommendation announced last year. The recommendations were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Several University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers aided in the study, including UW School of Medicine and Public Health professor Amy Trentham-Dietz, who’s the lead author of the study.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison are leading a new nationwide hub for school mental health grants.
Katie Eklund, Stephen Kilgus and Andy Garbacz are in charge of METRICS, a new center dedicated to addressing students’ mental health needs. They’re co-directors of the School Mental Health Collaborative, under UW-Madison’s Department of Educational Psychology.
“While opioids are involved in the majority of overdose deaths in the United States, we are increasingly seeing deaths involving a variety of other substances as well,” says Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, associate professor in the department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “Substance use trends also look quite different from one region to another.”
The state’s top disease official says reports of public exposure to two infectious diseases in Wisconsin last week show new emphasis is needed on the importance of vaccines.
It’s having a deep impact on the labor force. According to a 2023 report from High Roads Strategy Center, part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin’s women labor force participation dropped below 60% for the first time since the late 1980s.
“Our relative (workforce) advantage shrank quite substantially over the last two years,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of High Roads Strategy Center. “We know that child care has been in crisis, even before the pandemic. Our structures for taking care of kids tend to weigh heavily on women and on women’s work.”
“My son is represented up there,” Denning said of his prayer tie on the teepee without a cover, adding that the incomplete teepee represents how it feels when we lose someone.
His son, Sawyer, was a bright, young man who did well as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Denning said Sawyer was a good student throughout high school and hadn’t been exposed to drugs. But, at college, someone gave him an anti-anxiety drug to help step up his studying. Sawyer would then drink alcohol to help himself level out, so he could sleep after long study sessions fueled by the drug. He started to crash and struggled with addiction.
Sex Out Loud started in 1995 as a University Health Services (UHS) proposal to provide students with peer resources for sexual health before becoming a registered student organization in 1998. Nearly three decades later, Sex Out Loud Chair Mia Warren told The Daily Cardinal she hopes to expand the organization to college campuses across the nation.
These changes happen to about 1 in 5 of us as we age, according to Lisa Vinney, a speech-language pathologist and faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Age-related voice changes happen to everyone to some degree,” she said. “But those changes can occur more rapidly or be more pronounced thanks to genetic, lifestyle and health factors.”
The health care system explained Thursday that MONARCH Platform for Urology researchers are determining if new technology can break up kidney stones more thoroughly and remove more of the stones from patients.
Co-authored by ssociate professor of Management and Human Resources, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Leaders with the University of Wisconsin-Madison said food waste accounts for about 30% of the solid waste the university generates.
Dr. Lucille Barash Glicklich Rosenberg accomplished something rare in 1950. She graduated from UW-Madison as a pediatrician.
It was one of many accomplishments throughout her career that contributed to her reputation as a trailblazing woman in medicine in the Milwaukee area.
Heather Kirkorian, professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researches the effects of media on children’s development. Kirkorian said media effects vary widely among individuals, noting it can pose both positive and negative outcomes. While clear evidence exists of manipulative practices to keep youth engaged longer, she said a direct link is lacking between the use of social media and an increase in suicidal ideation or mental health problems.
“It’s really important for us to understand that the effects of media are not the same for everybody, and some groups of children might be disproportionately affected by media,” Kirkorian said.
Togetherall, a virtual community providing clinically moderated mental health support, is now available free to all UW-Madison students.
America dropped 20 spots in the latest World Happiness Report. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the trends contributing to lower happiness and what can be done about it.
Collectively, about five million Americans are diagnosed with either MS or Sjogren’s disease. Interview with Dr. Sara McCoy, a clinical rheumatologist at UW Health and director of the Sjogren’s Syndrome Clinic.
America dropped 20 spots in the latest World Happiness Report. We talk with Christine Whelan, a UW-Madison consumer science professor, about the trends contributing to lower happiness and what can be done about it.
University of Wisconsin-Madison criminal justice professor Kenneth Streit said the new unit will allow people on the waitlist for Mendota and other state mental hospitals to get treatment at a civil facility sooner, with more access to personal space and state-trained medical professionals. Many are currently languishing in county jails.
“A person’s going to have much more contact with people who are aware of what their symptoms are and aware of how that person should be behaving,” Streit said
“Today is an example of what we view as part of our responsibilities, which is not just to serve individual patients, but to serve our communities,” Dr. Howard Bailey, Director of Carbone Cancer, said about the event.
A lab at UW-Madison is working to create an atlas of prenatal brains with Down syndrome in an effort to better understand the condition. Anita Bhattacharyya, the leader of the lab, joins us.
A first of its kind was introduced at UW Health Monday – a respiratory therapy program dedicated to providing access and opportunities for non-traditional students. UW Health says they are the first in the nation to introduce an apprenticeship for respiratory therapy, and their goal is to address the growing need they see in respiratory health care.
This April, which marks Donate Life Month, the UW Health Transplant Center is reflecting on a major milestone. In Feb. 2024, surgeons completed the 20,000th organ transplant in the program’s history.
“Kind of top of mind is the fact that, how many people have helped that many people receive the gift of life,” Dr. Dixon Kaufman, UW Health Transplant Center’s medical director, said. “At the top of that list are all the organ donors [and] their families — the vast majority from our community and the state of Wisconsin. That … allows us to give the gift of life to so many people.”
The Massachusetts General Hospital recently completed the world’s first successful transplant of a genetically altered pig kidney. A pair of Wisconsin kidney specialists share their insights on this milestone. Then, we dive further into chronic kidney disease, including transplantation and dialysis. Includes interview with Dr. Didier Mandelbrot, the medical director of the UW Health Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation Program
“We are proud that our incredible expertise in transplantation has transformed the lives of thousands of people,” said Dr. Dixon Kaufman, the medical director at the UW Health Transplant Center. “Our program is consistently ranked as one of the leaders in simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplants, making this milestone a truly full-circle moment.”
One of the most common myths about dementia — a general impairment in thinking and memory — is that it’s a normal part of aging. But Dr. Nathaniel Chin, an assistant professor and geriatrician at UW Health, wants to bust that myth.
“There are plenty of people who live a really long and healthy life that never develop advanced thinking changes,” said Chin, the director of medical services with the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and host of the “Dementia Matters” podcast.
Many people seek the help of professionals after the death of a spouse or partner. We talk with Shilagh Mirgain, a psychologist from UW Health, about what options are available and how to decide what is right for you.
“You can start with a simple appreciation practice,” Cortland Dahl, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, previously told HuffPost. Just bring a friend or loved one into your mind, then consciously focusing on the things you really cherish about them.
For the members of Ohe·láku, a co-op of Oneida Nation families growing their traditional white corn together, what started as an experiment has become a success story.
A few years ago, they partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to test different cover crop mixes to restore soil they grow on, which had been depleted under prior ownership. Cover crops are left in the soil after the primary crop is harvested. The idea is to make sure the fields are never bare, increasing soil fertility, limiting runoff and keeping the soil moist.
David O’Conner, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told me that COVID initially increased the collaborations between researchers and public health officials. He worries that in our supposedly post-COVID world, we’re returning to a baseline with public health and academics working with “less overlap than during the early [SARS-CoV-2] pandemic.”
The mixed recommendations are confusing, acknowledged Dr. Mai Elezaby, associate professor and breast imaging section chief at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and medical director of breast imaging at UW Health, during a recent appearance on “The Larry Meiller Show.”
The official U.S. Census is only taken every 10 years, so estimates like these are “ballpark figures” determined by “symptomatic indicators of population change,” including births, deaths, and domestic and international migration, said David Egan-Robertson, a demographer with the University of Wisconsin’s Applied Population Laboratory. Still, they’re likely to closely reflect reality.
The new estimates reveal that, in the 2020s, some Wisconsin counties have seen significant population growth while others have seen steep declines.
There’s a disconnect in how we respond to older people struggling with their mental health, said Dr. Sarah Endicott, a clinical professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on geriatrics. Some of that, she suspects, may be chalked up to ageism, which the World Health Organization defines as the stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination toward others based on age.
“I don’t think it’s intentional, but the lower value we place on older adults in general, especially when it comes to end-of-life, I’m guessing that’s part of the cause,” said Endicott, who also works as a geriatric psychiatrist at Stoughton Hospital in Dane County.
Members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison community descended on Capitol Hill Wednesday to make the case for more research funding.
“We can create jobs. We can create innovation, new technologies, and improve human health and improve the human condition,” said Charlie Hoslet, the vice chancellor of university relations at UW-Madison.
“This is a huge step in the right direction to break down barriers to access contraceptives,” Dr. Abigail Cutler, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Public Health said.
Higher pollen counts and a longer, earlier pollen season are brought on by warmer temperatures. From 1990 to 2018, the overall amount of pollen increased by up to 21%, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Texas and the Midwest experienced the largest increases.
Jesse Ehrenfeld, an anesthesiologist at a Wisconsin hospital, asked a patient about to have heart surgery if she would consent to a blood transfusion should it become necessary.
WHA has started a So Many Options campaign to boost interest in health care careers. It recommends expanding training opportunities, such as a nurse apprenticeship program started last year by UW Health and Madison Area Technical College.
We talk with a Madison features editor about the winners, losers, and snubs from the weekend’s 96th Academy Awards. Then Ajay Sethi, a population health expert at UW-Madison, reviews the CDC’s new coronavirus isolation guidelines. And we learn the history of private equity firms taking over American newspapers.
Adult ticks, approximately half of whom are infected with the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, are ready to feed earlier than usual this year.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services and the Midwest Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases at the University of Wisconsin-Madison started to look for ticks in February, almost two months ahead of schedule.
A spokesperson for UW Health — which operates multiple hospitals in the Madison area — told the Cap Times that the health group has heard concern from patients who aren’t sure how the ruling in Alabama may affect access to fertility treatment elsewhere in the country.
“According to the medical director of UW Health Generations, patients have been inquiring about any risk to having their embryos stored and potentially losing their ability to choose what to do with them,” Sara Benzel, a spokesperson for UW Health, wrote in an email to the Cap Times.
Includes interview with Madeline Barger, the clinic coordinator in the Waisman Center Autism Treatment Programs at UW-Madison.
Fertilization, which happens when the sperm and egg unite, is what most people refer to as “conception,” said Dr. Abigail Cutler, an OB-GYN at UW Health and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
About five to 10 days after fertilization, the fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus. HCG is produced shortly afterward, Cutler said, first in low levels which rise rapidly over time. “The very earliest someone can confirm whether they are pregnant is following implantation, the timing of which varies but can take a week or more,” she said
Column co-authored by Jared E. Boyce, an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
’Covid is still circulating, but we are in a very different position than we were a year ago,’ UW professor says.
Scientists studying viruses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently opened their lab door for a tour, looking to shine a light on their work after being targeted by a Republican bill.
“The year following a delivery is a very important year with huge life changes and where having adequate health care is absolutely essential,” said Dr. Lee Dresang, a family medicine doctor at UW Health and a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Of the patients he followed with postpartum depression, “exactly zero magically got better at 60 days after delivery,” he said during a legislative hearing.
Scientists have created miniorgans from cells floating in the fluid that surrounds a fetus in the womb – an advance they believe could open up new areas of prenatal medicine. Alta Charo, an emeritus professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who wasn’t involved in the study, said the new approach doesn’t raise the same ethical issues. “Obtaining cells from amniotic fluid that is already being sampled for standard clinical purposes does not appear to add any physical risks to either fetus or pregnant woman,” she said in an email.
Parties in the lawsuit over abortion law in Wisconsin want the state Supreme Court to take the case, bypassing the state’s appeals court — University of Wisconsin Law School professor Howard Schweber described how he thinks the court might consider the issues.
In an interview, Vidal said financing for the development would include $4.9 million Meta House received from the state’s share of a 2022 opioid lawsuit settlement; a $775,000 grant from University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health via American Rescue Plan Act funds; private philanthropy, and federal New Markets Tax Credits − which help finance new commercial buildings in lower-income neighborhoods.
UW Health said Friday that information on some patients was compromised in a cybersecurity incident that began with the hacking of an employee’s email account.
Such rigor is admirable, but it also means one can miss things, says Simon Goldberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies the effects of meditation, including research among people who have psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. He noted that because of Dunn and Folk’s strict criteria, they omitted hundreds of studies on meditation’s benefits. “It’s, in the spirit of rigor, throwing lots of babies out with the bathwater,” he says. “It’s really very obvious that meditation training reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.”
Dr. Dustin Deming, a medical oncologist and laboratory researcher at UW Health Carbone Cancer Center in Madison, knows exactly what his patients are going through because he’s been in their shoes. “I knew I wanted to have a career as a colorectal cancer researcher,” Dr. Deming said. But what he didn’t know is that he would also become a patient.
There are long-standing health disparities for communities of color and LGBTQIA+ in Wisconsin and Illinois. Many causes exist for these disparities, such as inadequate access to health care, environmental factors, lack of financial resources, historically inequitable approaches to treatment, and racism.
Miriam Seifter, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Law, said similar cases have been brought before state supreme courts across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections in their 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“At least a dozen state high courts have expressly held that these types of provisions protect abortion, at least to some extent,” Seifter said. “There are a number of others that have reached those types of rulings at the lower court level, but haven’t fully resolved them in the high courts yet.”
David Kreling, professor emeritus in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the U.S. price quoted by Baldwin sounds about right.
“The $500 number may be in the ballpark for U.S. patented (brand-name, newer) drugs,” Kreling said in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin. “That would be consistent with my understanding of market data on sales by firms in the U.S. Things in the $7 range, here, only reside within the off-patent generic drug market (where we have low prices, sometimes at or near lowest in the world).”
