Science Media Centre

New research has revealed New Zealand has one of the highest rates of diabetes among developed countries, drawing attention to the causes and prevention of the disease. The study, published in the Lancet, examined 2008 data on rates of diabetes globally and found that among wealthy countries New Zealand ranked in the top five in [...]

Today the Lancet published its comprehensive article series on stillbirth, drawing attention to the understated global prevalence of the phenomenon. One baby out of every 130 who reach the midpoint of pregnancy in New Zealand and Australia will be stillborn. Unexplained stillbirth is ten times more common that cot death (SIDS), and yet the issue [...]

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 [...]

British medical science journal The Lancet has done a write-up on the rapidly expanding Science Media Centre network, detailing the increasingly international nature of the SMC, which began in Britain almost a decade ago. SMCs opened in Japan and Canada last year and a centre is scheduled to launch in Denmark in 2011. Collaboration between [...]

Research published in The Lancet Oncology today shows a strong causal link between obesity in Asia-Pacific people, and an increased risk of dying from cancer. While an increased risk of death from cancer has been linked with obesity in Western populations, little research until now has looked at any effects in Asia-Pacific populations. Now, a [...]

Prestigious medical journal The Lancet has formally retracted the paper in which Andrew Wakefield, the doctor behind claims that the MMR vaccine can be linked to autism, first claimed such effects. The MMR, or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, came under scrutiny in the late 1990s when Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor, wrote a paper [...]

Giving children paracetamol during their first year of life can increase their risk of developing asthma according to new research to be published in Lancet. Lancet podcast with Dr Richard Beasley, director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand and co-author of the research. Currently over 600,000 New Zealaners have asthma and the incidence [...]