The University of Chicago Medicine earned its 13th consecutive “A” in patient safety from The Leapfrog Group, a prominent hospital-watchdog organization. The grade, announced on April 24, 2018, makes UCM one of only 49 hospitals in the country to achieve an “A” in every grading update since the launch of the Safety Grade in 2012.      

Although the vast majority of research on the gut microbiome has focused on bacteria in the large intestine, a new study — one of a few to concentrate on microbes in the upper gastrointestinal tract — shows how the typical calorie-dense western diet can induce expansion of microbes that promote the digestion and absorption of high-fat foods. Several studies have shown that these bacteria can multiply within 24 to 48 hours in the small bowel in response to consumption of high-fat foods. The findings from this work suggest that these microbes facilitate production and secretion of digestive enzymes into the … Read More

Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) offer significant, daily benefits to people with type 1 diabetes, providing near-real time measurements of blood sugar levels, but they can be expensive. A new study by researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine, based on a 6-month clinical trial, finds that use of a CGM is cost-effective for adult patients with type 1 diabetes when compared to daily use of test strips. The results are well within the thresholds normally used by insurance plans to cover medical devices. During the trial, CGMs improved overall blood glucose control for the study group and reduced hypoglycemia, or … Read More

Anaphylaxis is the scary end of allergy, the kind of reaction that can kill. It can happen almost immediately after the exposure — being stung by the bee, eating the peanut — and it can move fast. In anaphylaxis, your immune system turns against you with a vengeance, revs up and releases histamines and other chemicals that set off a range of dangerous physiological changes. More

Vaccines designed to protect people from the influenza virus tend to concentrate on hemagglutinin, one of the two prominently displayed proteins on the surface of the virus and the primary target for influenza prevention. More