Science Media Centre

New research published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal has highlighted the link between unhealthy behaviours like drinking and smoking. NZ Newswire’s David Williams covered the story. An excerpt (read in full here): Hit booze in smoking battle: experts The government should consider alcohol law changes as part of the battle against smoking after [...]

American researchers investigating the longterm impacts of a lower legal drinking age in some US states say the evidence points to higher risk of serious harm including suicide and homicide, when the drinking age is lower.   Their study — released online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research — looked at data gathered [...]

Auckland doctor, Professor John Kolbe, President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, has signed — on behalf of Australasia — an international consensus statement calling on doctors to take the lead on tackling alcohol misuse. In New Zealand, the college represents 1500 medical specialists and 700 trainees. Published online by a British medical journal, [...]

New research suggests that one -and only one- drink of alcohol a day could be good for the health of middle-aged women. However, the implied benefits of alcohol are drawing criticism from some experts.   US researchers have studied over 121,000 nurses enrolled in the US Nurses’ Health Study which started in 1976. They compared [...]

People who work long hours are more likely to have drinking problems involving alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence, according a to a new study. The study, recently published in the journal Addiction, found that working at least 50 hours a week increases the risk of alcohol problems by up to three times.  The study used [...]

Several articles in the current issue of New Zealand Medical Journal have made headlines as they bring into focus Kiwi drinking habits and their wider impact. Today’s issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal contains three studies and two editorials examining how we drink, the damage it causes to others in society and calls for [...]

A review article published in the Lancet this week put forward health priorities aimed at tackling some of the worlds biggest killers – heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory disease. A team of nearly 100 international health experts, led by New Zealander Professor Robert Beaglehole, called on heads of state and governments to [...]

A review article published in the Lancet today puts forward health priorities aimed at tackling some of the worlds biggest killers – heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory disease. A team of nearly 100 international health experts, led by New Zealander Professor Robert Beaglehole, are calling on heads of state and governments to [...]

AusSMC: UK research has found light drinking during pregnancy does not harm a young child’s behavioral or intellectual development. The study found children born to light drinkers were less likely to have behavioural problems than children whose mothers did not drink during pregnancy, but this effect was reduced after the authors adjusted for confounding factors [...]

UPDATED 4PM: New research drawing on data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study, a large study tracking the long term health of children born in the UK, suggests that light drinking during pregnancy does not harm a child’s behavioural or intellectual development. The research, published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (A [...]