The Briefing

It seems that the totality of evidence – and particularly the randomised trial data, suggests it would be beneficial for health authorities to continue acting to reduce dietary salt intakes.

There is a perception that healthy food costs more – but does it really? It all depends on how you measure the cost.

A large prospective study on dietary salt and health has recently been reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. While reinforcing extensive past work that a (very) high intake of salt is hazardous to health – an increased hazard was also found for low intakes of salt (i.e., a “J-shaped” or “U-shaped” relationship).

At the Public Health Congress in Auckland last week, one of us presented on potential public health endgames – partly to inform thinking around the tobacco endgame in New Zealand (the Smokefree Nation Goal for 2025). This blog considers what additional endgames this country could be bolder about tackling.

If you’re going to reduce sugar intake, should you replace it with artificial sweetener? If you’re a mouse – no. If you’re a human – they might help with short-term weight loss, but there is a lot more to it than that.

A recently published review has quantified the estimated benefits and harms of taking regular aspirin for disease prevention. This blog briefly looks at the issues and considers possible responses by NZ health agencies and research funders.

A paper in the NZ Medical Journal shows that New Zealand has higher death rates from cancer than Australia that cannot be explained by higher incidence for most sites. This blog we canvass how bad (or good) the situation really is, the problems and possible sources of error comparing survival across the ditch (it is not easy to do), and we conclude with policy implications.

Is the new Health Star Rating label truly a win-win consensus, or might too much have been given away to reach a compromise?

This is Part 2 of a two-part blog by Dr Caroline Shaw and Associate Professor Diana Sarfati on breast cancer screening. In Part 1 they looked at the contested research around breast cancer screening. In today’s Part 2 they explore the implications for New Zealand.

This week Dr Caroline Shaw and Associate Professor Diana Sarfati consider the pros and cons of breast cancer screening, in light of the growing controversy (mostly in the northern hemisphere) about the possibility that the benefits of breast cancer screening are (much) less than previously thought due to over-detection and other issues.