URBANA, Ill. – Interpersonal trust is a crucial component of healthy relationships. When we interact with strangers, we quickly gauge whether we can trust them. And those important social skills may be shaped by our earliest relationship with caregivers.

Adolescents who had an insecure attachment to their mothers as toddlers are more likely to overestimate the trustworthiness of strangers, according to a new study from the University of Illinois.

Urbana, Ill. – A new study by Cancer Center at Illinois Education Program Leader, Zeynep Madak-Erdogan and her team, have found a new mechanism of endocrine resistance in breast cancers metastasized to the liver. Madak-Erdogan is an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Although studies suggest that many cancer patients experience food insecurity, few oncology dietitians routinely ask them if they are having problems affording or obtaining food, new research has found.

Despite awareness that many cancer patients are food insecure, most of the 41 registered dietitian nutritionists interviewed by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said they did not use a validated tool to screen patients for it.

Medical practices focusing on the relationship between the nervous system (mind) and the immune system (body) are explored in the relatively new biomedical research field of psychoneuroimmunology. Significant discoveries in areas like stress, mindfulness, ancient exercise (tai chi), and dietary interventions are just some of the work pioneered in this field.  

URBANA, Ill. – As we move into the third year of the COVID-pandemic, we still face a multitude of information and it can be hard to know what guidelines to follow. Understanding what motivates individual behaviors can provide greater insight into mitigating the pandemic’s consequences and crafting effective public health messages.

This week’s 5 Questions Friday spotlight shines on an alum who remains very connected to campus, but in ways he might not have imagined. In addition to a host of other roles, Dr. Michael Smith serves as an emergency medicine physician.

What is your agriculture background?

URBANA, Ill. – Fruit and vegetable consumption is an important part of a healthy diet. But low-income families face unique obstacles to healthy eating, including higher cost of fresh foods and limited resources for cooking. 

URBANA, Ill. – Not to pile on, but winter is coming and the COVID-19 pandemic is about to get worse. Not necessarily because of omicron – scientists are still working that one out – but because there’s more evidence than ever that COVID-19 is a seasonal disease.

URBANA, Ill. – As couples grow old together, their interdependence heightens. Often, they become each other’s primary source of physical and emotional support. Long-term marriages have a profound impact on health and well-being, but benefits depend on relationship quality.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Exposure to PFAS – a class of synthetic chemicals utilized in food wrappers, nonstick cookware and other products – reprograms the metabolism of benign and malignant human prostate cells to a more energy efficient state that enables the cells to proliferate at three times the rate of nonexposed cells, a new study in mice found. However, consuming a high-fat diet significantly accelerated development of tumors in the PFAS-exposed mice, the scientists said.