Healthier Lives

Healthier Lives Director Professor Jim Mann recently featured in two articles in the Otago Daily Times about diabetes and translating healthy eating messages. On Tuesday, 14 November Dunedin launched a day of diabetes-awareness activities that saw the city lit blue to coincide with World Diabetes Day. The day featured opportunities to test your blood sugar […]

The Healthier Lives National Science Challenge is seeking your views about the next phase of our work.  We have produced a brief background document to outline possible future research priorities and ask our stakeholders a set of questions. If you haven’t done so already, please have your say at: https://healthierlives.co.nz/consult/ (no longer available) The deadline […]

He Pikinga Waiora, a Healthier Lives research project focussed on reducing health inequities and achieving health equity for Māori, has recently revealed the potential of a unique framework for research within indigenous communities. Researchers developed the He Pikinga Waiora Implementation Framework using indigenous and mainstream theoretical foundations and empirical evidence. They then applied the framework to a systematic review of […]

Dr Matire Harwood (Ngāpuhi), Healthier Lives Principal Investigator and Science Leadership Team member, has been honoured for her work in indigenous health. She has been awarded a prestigious L’Oréal UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship in recognition of her research addressing the inequities of health-related outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Dr Harwood is a […]

A new OECD obesity update reports New Zealand has come third in the obesity stakes, just behind Mexico and the USA. We’ve held third place since 2007, but the percentage of obese adults has increased from 26.5% to 30.7%. Health sector researchers and professionals are very concerned about the implications of obesity, contributing causes, and costs […]

Professor Peter Shepherd FRSNZ, a member of Healthier Lives Scientific Leadership Team, has been awarded the Callaghan Medal by Royal Society Te Apārangi. The medal is for pioneering activities to increase the understanding of science by the New Zealand public. The formal citation reads: To Peter Robin Shepherd for his pioneering work in transferring scientific […]

Healthier Lives members and colleagues are delighted that Professor Parry Guilford (Healthier Lives Deputy Director), has been recognised with this award. Parry is an internationally renowned cancer genetics and biology expert and has been selected as the University of Otago’s latest recipient of the Distinguished Research Medal, the University’s highest distinction. The University awards the […]

Chances are you don’t give much thought to what’s going on in your gut, unless you have an upset tummy. But the gut – and the population of bacteria that live there – is the new frontier in health research. The microbiome, as it’s known, is something that’s getting scientists excited – and it could […]

A Healthier Lives National Science Challenge study using New Zealand linked datasets reveals the impact of residential housing damage from the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquakes on hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease. The research found that people living in areas with more severely damaged homes in the first year after a major earthquake had elevated levels of […]

Imagine going to your doctor and coming away not with a prescription for pharmaceuticals – but for an app to download to your phone. This is a scenario that’s in the not-too-distant future, in particular for our Māori and Pacific communities, if a new project that’s part of the Healthier Lives He Oranga Hauora National […]

Diabetes NZ Inc and the Healthier Lives National Science Challenge have signed a Statement of Collaboration. They aim to work together to raise the profile of diabetes research and issues in New Zealand, and to ensure that Challenge research is relevant to people with diabetes. The agreement was signed in Dunedin by Deb Connor (President […]

Healthier Lives Director Professor Jim Mann is delighted with today’s announcement of $2.3 million for two new research projects, one that focuses on interventions for prediabetes in Pacific communities, and the other on integrated healthcare for people with multiple chronic conditions. The Healthier Lives National Science Challenge, the Ministry of Health and the Health Research […]

Healthier Lives Deputy Director Cliona Ni Mhurchu is the lead researcher in a new study examining the influence of the Health Star Rating (HSR) system on packaged food products. It appears that the star ratings are encouraging revisions of formulations of some products. The study found about 80% of the products examined had been reformulated to some […]

Healthier Lives is supporting a PhD project to examine how effective co-design is for developing a mobile health tool for Māori. Co-design is the partnership between researchers and end-users across the whole of the research activity. While there are a growing number of kaupapa Māori research frameworks, there are fewer evaluation-specific frameworks which determine the […]

The Public Health Expert blog has recently released two articles that closely relate to Healthier Lives areas of research interest: The impact, risk, and opportunity with ‘big data’ in regard to health (including a study for Healthier Lives about cardiovascular disease impacts from earthquakes) Concerning trends and responses to inequalities in rates of mortality Read […]

A number of Healthier Lives team members and colleagues have had the strength of their research acknowledged with success in the latest Health Research Council of New Zealand funding round. We congratulate them all! We commend their research excellence and look forward to the benefits their work will bring towards achieving healthier lives for all […]

Professor Anne Victoria (Vicky) Cameron was awarded  Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Professor Cameron is a scientist and academic who has been involved in the study of health and genetics for 30 years.  She is currently a a member of Healthier Lives Science […]

Healthier Lives Director, Professor Jim Mann, and colleague Professor  Stewart Truswell (Sydney), celebrated the launch of the fifth edition of their Essentials of Human Nutrition textbook in Dunedin last week. While the book is intended for students of nutrition and dietetics, nutrition has a role in so many areas. Training and established health professionals such […]

Students from Wellington East Girls College had a visit from Dr Brian Corley to talk about diabetes, some of the causes, and how it is linked to obesity. The talk covered the different types of diabetes, why type 2 diabetes is becoming increasingly common, and how big a problem it is for New Zealand. Students […]

‘Big Data’ is an increasingly important tool for health research worldwide, and can be an extremely cost-effective way of answering complex questions. In New Zealand we are fortunate to have some of the best national-level health and administrative data in the world but we are not yet making full use of this research opportunity. Healthier […]

Research led by the University of Otago, Wellington has found that a ‘home-grown’ naturally occurring probiotic reduces the risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes) and lowers fasting blood sugar. Associate Professor Rinki Murphy, a member of Healthier Lives Science Leadership Team, co-authored the study. Professor Julian Crane who leads the study says “We found […]

Mark Sainsbury interviews Dr Lisa Te Morenga, Healthier Lives co-principal investigator, about good sugar, bad sugar, and sneaky sugar on RadioLIVE. Following on from the recent ‘The cost of sugar’ forum that Healthier Lives co-hosted with Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre, and A Better Start National Science Challenge, Mark asks Lisa some common and […]

Professor Rachel Batterham, an endocrinologist at University College London and a keynote speaker at The Diabesity Crisis: how can we make a difference? research symposium, has been interviewed by Radio New Zealand broadcaster Kim Hill about bariatric surgery. Professor Batterham’s research has helped explain how bariatric surgery works, and in doing so has given us […]