Just in time for the holiday snacking and buffet season, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have invented an innovative weight-loss device that someday may be implanted in people’s stomachs.
A Legionnaires’ disease outbreak linked to UW Hospital’s water system has infected 14 people with the pneumonia-like bacteria, and three have died, a hospital official said Monday.
Noted: If you catch someone lying effortlessly and without flinching, be very alarmed. Psychopaths can pass polygraph tests because they don’t experience telltale reactions like an elevated heart rate when they lie. A University of Wisconsin-Madison study revealed that “psychopaths have reduced connections… between the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety.” Study author Michael Koenigs, an assistant professor of psychiatry, says the study demonstrates “both structural and functional differences in the brains of people diagnosed with psychopathy.”
Two weeks ago, Will Burlingham, a professor of transplantation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, got a surprise call from the National Institutes of Health: Would he like a little extra money to create more laboratory mice?
Valerie Donovan, the Suicide Prevention Coordinator for UW-Madison University Mental Health Services, says the numbers can be scary. “They really show this issue and we’ve seen from the numbers that they are trending up,” said Donovan.
Quoted: Walton O. Schalick III noted concerns about the use of CT scans to evaluate traumatic brain injuries in children at a Wednesday Nite @ the Lab lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Nov. 8, 2017. The talk, which looked more broadly at changing approaches to treating disabilities among children, was recorded for Wisconsin Public Television’s “University Place.”
Few randomized controlled trials have studied effective programs to combat the year-end bloat, noted Dale Schoeller of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who wasn’t involved in the study.
UW-Madison’s Suicide Prevention Council, started in 2013, tries to assist students who need help and improve well-being on campus, Donovan said. Overall, college is considered to be “protective” against suicide, but “there are significant stressors,” she said.
The Trump administration in September launched a comprehensive review of all research involving human fetal tissue, which has helped researchers make headway in studies of macular degeneration and infectious diseases like HIV and the Zika virus.
Noted: Article co-written by Anita Mukherjee of the Wisconsin School of Business.
One hundred and fifteen people die each day due to an opioid overdose in the United States. Policymakers have tried many approaches to reduce this mortality rate, and researchers have been studying their effects. This post summarizes recent research on how to reduce opioid abuse and opioid-related mortality. What have we learned so far?
The Friends of UW Health’s Love Lights event on Saturday helped people who have lost loved ones over the past year cope with the difficulties of the holidays.
The session — involving Richard Russell, 74, of Madison, who works as a mock patient to help young doctors learn — is part of a growing effort at UW-Madison and around the state to better prepare health care providers to serve an aging population.
Eleven patients at UW Hospital have developed Legionnaires’ disease, apparently from the hospital’s hot water system, and four of them remain in the hospital, officials said Friday.
Noted: A UW-Madison assistant professor of Family Medicine and Community Health says innovation in attacking the opioid crises can be a good idea. But Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska says there should be caution, too.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Veterinary Care’s oncology department is conducting a clinical trial that could develop a vaccine for canine cancer.
Noted: The problem would get much worse if healthy people who can afford health insurance only because of the federal subsidies were removed from the market, said Justin Sydnor, an assistant professor of actuarial science, risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It’s been a struggle for decades to get transplants and associated expenses covered by insurance, said Dr. Maryl Johnson, a heart failure and transplant cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Stigma continues to be a problem when addressing equity in mental health care.
Alongside his work with the Green Bay Packers, former head coach Mike McCarthy spent the past eight years giving back to American Family Children’s Hospital.
Quoted: “[To] suggest that neurofeedback can be helpful to people meditating is really grossly overstating the case,” said Richard Davidson, the founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading neuroscientist in the study of meditation. “The brain is ridiculously complex. Our measures, even though they’ve come a long way, are absurdly limited and very coarse, and it’s nothing short of hubris to think that we have the right measures at this point in time that we should be providing feedback on.”
Noted: Sleep “cleans up” the brain. When you sleep, your brain removes information you don’t need and consolidates what you learned that day. This makes room for new learning. After all, do you really need to remember what socks you wore, the joke you heard during first period, or what you ate for breakfast? Neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin found that many of our synapses shrink at night as the brain weeds out or “forgets” information that it no longer needs. And it’s not just memories that need to be cleaned up. According to the National Institutes of Health, sleep also flushes out toxins that accumulate during the day.
Keynote speaker Dr. Jennifer Edgoose, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, discussed the topic of moving beyond health disparities and race to reach health equity for minorities.
Vander Wiele also cited a Nov. 1, 2017, news item issued by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Medicine: “Wisconsin has best health care quality in the nation, federal agency says.”
Noted: Ryan Herringa, a pediatric psychiatrist and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says children without this kind of professional support can benefit by talking to any trusted adult.
Also quoted: Pamela McGranahan, director of UW-Madison’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program, studies the impacts of childhood trauma. She said children are vicarious learners and they’re watching what’s going on around them at all times — even if it’s just something they hear on the news.
St. Mary’s Hospital has a case of Legionnaires’ disease, a state official said Thursday, joining four cases reported by UW Hospital Wednesday.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a bandage that harnesses a body’s own energy to speed up wound healing through gentle electrical pulses.
Mature, adult oligodendrocytes can reacquire their ability to produce myelin to replace the ones lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) without undergoing a stem cell-like state, a new study shows.
Wednesday night staff flushed and disinfected the water treatment system to make sure no new infections pop up. Hospital staff says the situation should be fixed Thursday.
The University of Wisconsin Hospital said Wednesday afternoon that it’s taking measures to address a suspected risk to patients associated with the hospital’s hot water system.
Dr. Dipesh Navsaria of UW Health is among the members.
Four UW Hospital patients have developed Legionnaires’ disease, an unusual cluster of the potentially fatal bacterial infection likely caused by a recent move to reduce water flow when demand is low, a hospital official said Wednesday.
Quoted: Law professor and bioethicist R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a member of the summit organizing committee, thinks that’s the right emphasis. “We continue to have a public fascination with the least likely applications” of CRISPR, she said: “Germline editing, which will be the most complicated use to evaluate in terms of its risks and benefits, and enhancement” — using CRISPR not to treat a disease but to improve someone’s appearance, strength, or other traits. People, she added, put these applications together — germline editing for enhancement, a.k.a. “designer babies” — “and we’re off to the races.”
Response times to medical emergencies in north-central Wisconsin will be a little quicker next year, thanks to Madison-based Med Flight.
Elementary, middle, and high school students took part in the first-ever installment of the Ladder Program at UW-Madison on Saturday morning.
The UW School of Medicine and Public Health recently received full eight-year accreditation, which is the highest level of accreditation possible for a U.S. medical degree program, officials said.
Noted: The genesis of the Kubly Foundation, in its current form, began at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1950s when four undergrad students began a lifelong friendship — Michael Kubly and his wife-to-be Billie Wenger, and Michael Schmitz and his wife-to-be Jeanne Berry.
RedeeFlu’s mechanism for achieving broad effectiveness is that, like other LAIVs, it stimulates both antibody and T-cell responses, but RedeeFlu does those things better than other LAIVs, according to FluGen cofounder Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who holds joint appointments at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Tokyo.
In a 2017 study published in the journal Psychological Science, psychologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported that happiness levels in American adults are a strong predictor of cardiovascular disease, and subjects who felt happier saw improved health markers in their daily lives.
Flegle, desperate to keep Star alive and healthy, considered dialysis and a kidney transplant — which is rare for dogs. A surgeon at the University of Wisconsin-Madison agreed to consider an organ transplant, but only if there was a familial match.
Quoted: “Those who peddle it promote it as good for everything,” but in this definitive test, vitamin D “showed a big nothing,” said Dr. James Stein, a heart specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He had no role in the studies or ties to the companies involved.
Robert Golden, dean of the UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health for the past dozen years, leaned into the question as if he wanted no doubt to exist on where he stood. We were in his office in a campus building located a stone’s throw away from University Hospital.
The Global Health Institute and the School of Veterinary Medicine at UW-Madison celebrated One Health Day by featuring keynote speaker Dr. Jonathan Sleeman.
University Health Services introduced Mandarin-speaking counselor Wei-Chiao Hsu in January 2018. Hsu is the second ever hired Mandarin-speaking counselor after a two-year gap, and the only one serving now on campus.
Robert Golden, dean of the UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health for the past dozen years, leaned into the question as if he wanted no doubt to exist on where he stood. We were in his office in a campus building located a stone’s throw away from University Hospital.
The shortage and subsequent lack of care are not surprising to Angela Janis, University Health Services co-director of mental health services and director of psychiatric services.
The number of children diagnosed with chronic health conditions is increasing but a high percentage are struggling with medication adherence, according to pharmacy researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Pittsburgh, US.
What if a simple blood test could determine if your child — as young as 18 months — has the developmental issues associated with autism spectrum disorder? That outcome could both speed up the diagnosis and treatment of an often-devastating childhood disease.
UW Health plans to build a $255 million clinic, on land with room for additional expansion, next to its hospital that opened three years ago on Madison’s Far East Side.
Frederic “Ric” Ransom, who is currently chief operating officer at Greenville Memorial Hospital in Greenville, South Carolina, will assume his new role in December, UW Health said Tuesday.
Quoted: “I was really just grateful that her co-workers recognized what was happening and having other people in the community recognize the symptoms of stroke even if it’s not happening to them,” said Dr. Natalie Wheeler, a neurologist at UW Hospital.
For months, James Thomson rose at 5 in the morning, hours before his day job, and hustled off to a secret scientific project in a lab next to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s in vitro fertilization clinic. His chest felt tight, as if he’d been holding his breath, worrying constantly.
Video coverage of the event.
The Wisconsin Partnership Program with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health announced four $1 million grants Thursday, one of which was awarded to Nehemiah Community Development Corp., a Madison organization focused on reducing racial inequities, and its Justified Anger initiative.
In April 2017, two transgender women, one a UW-Madison cancer researcher, the other a UW-Madison teaching assistant, brought suit, contending that the ban was unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists studying the cells of patients with the rare nervous system disorder Alexander disease have made a breakthrough that could shed new light on a host of more common diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
An oral emergency contraceptive is now available for purchase in both student unions at UW-Madison, and at a lower cost than name-brand equivalents.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW Health have a number physicians from anywhere in the state can call to consult with addiction specialists.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are studying placentas from births at a local hospital to identify structural changes in fetal membranes that could help determine when a premature birth is likely to occur.
As Big Ten rivals battle it out on the field this fall, researchers from the schools are coming together to fight cancer. The Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium is a clinical cancer trial network. University of Wisconsin-Madison is a proud participant.
Each year they accept about 25 applicants who already work for them into the program, hoping they come out the other side on the inside track to success at the hospital.
