International researchers have investigated a link between taking dietary supplements and an increased risk of death in older women. Data was used from the Iowa Women’s Health Study to examine the link between vitamin and mineral supplementation, including multivitamins and iron, and death rate in over 38,000 older women with an average age of 62 years. Commentary available.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Professor Mark Wahlqvist is Visiting Professor at the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) in Taiwan and Zhejiang University in China and Emeritus Professor at Monash University in Melbourne

“The Iowa Women’s Health Study reporting on dietary supplements adds to growing concern about the safety of their use in Western society – usually more so, curiously, among the more socio-economically advantaged. Such people might be expected to out-perform the less advantaged, and indeed they do, unless they have unhealthy behaviours. It now seems that dietary supplementation is an unhealthy behaviour. The problem is partly that the people who use them are the ones who need them least.

Nevertheless, the problem is also seen among the world’s poor where well-meaning supplementation is given to those at risk of overwhelming infection with, for example, malaria or tuberculosis, as with iron supplementation for infants in Pemba (Tanzania) where mortality increased.

The safest way to achieve optimal nutrient intake is from food, and to have a diet which is diverse. This is the consistent finding in studies we and others have published on the Mediterranean diet in various locations, including Melbourne (Australia) and, this year, in people of Chinese ancestry and food culture in Taiwan. The more diverse the diet, the better the survival. This may be seen for small changes in the diet, as with a small 20g daily serving of beans or a serving of fish a week. With careful food choice these dietary practices are affordable and sustainable – and certainly much more so than buying supplements at inflated prices. Food is too complex to be simulated by pills.”

(All the studies referred to in this comment are available by contacting the AusSMC)

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Below is a comment collected by our friends at the UK Science Media Centre:

Dr Glenys Jones is Nutritionist in the Department of Diet & Population Health at MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge

“This observational study is interesting, but it does not show that supplement use causes women to die earlier. The study does not take into account whether the women using the supplements are doing so in response to illness, for example using iron supplements in response to anaemia (which is estimated to affect around 10-20% of women in this age group). Whereby it is most likely the illness that is the cause of the women dying, not the supplement use. Research in this area to date has had inconsistent findings, and what is needed to determine whether supplement use actually causes an alteration of mortality rate is a number of well controlled intervention studies that can then be brought together and reviewed.”

* Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women: The Iowa Women’s Health Study, Mursu et al., Archives of Internal Medicine, 171(18), 10 October 2011

In Australia, approximately 300 to 350 pregnancies are affected each year by a neural tube defect like spina bifida. With spina bifida, the spinal column does not close properly and the baby is born with exposed nerves and damaged vertebrae. The effects are permanent. The folic acid mandatory fortification standard was developed by FSANZ at the request of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council that consists of health and food ministers from the Australian Federal, State and Territory Governments.

It is still recommended that women who are pregnant, or considering becoming pregnant, should take a folic acid supplement at least one month before and three months after conception to reduce the risk of birth defects.

Further information on food fortification is available here

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Professor Fiona Stanley is Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth. Along with Carol Bower, Fiona produced the key study which showed that dietary intake of folate in early pregnancy protects against the occurrence of isolated neural-tube defects in infants.

“Mandatory fortification will save hundreds of Australian families every year going through the heartbreak of a termination or birth of a baby with a severe disability.

It is a B group vitamin naturally found in fresh fruit and leafy green vegetables and plays a crucial role in healthy cell growth.

While the primary role of fortification is to ensure healthy pregnancies, there is growing evidence about the broader benefits of folate such as its impact in reducing some cancers and heart disease.”

Professor Andrew Copp is from the Institute of Child Health, London. He was on sabbatical at the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Sydney from June – August, 2009.

“Making folate in bread compulsory is a step in the right direction. There is strong evidence that folic acid prevents the formation of spina bifida if taken during the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy, which is when the spinal cord forms. As this is very early in the pregnancy and is the time when most women are waiting for their pregnancy to be confirmed, folic acid is usually not taken until too late.

For folic acid to be effective in preventing spina bifida, it needs to be taken when the individual is planning her pregnancy – which very few people do. In the UK, where folate supplementation is voluntary, very little reduction in spina bifida frequency has been noted. However in countries such as the US and Canada, where folate fortification of bread flour is mandatory, the number of cases has lessened.

The initial study that demonstrated the effectiveness of folic acid was a clinical trial closely monitored by doctors. There is a large step between undertaking such a trial in a controlled environment and rolling it out within a large population, which is why education and voluntary supplementation were first trialled. However, the key finding from this was that the effectiveness of folic acid will only work on a population basis if it is made mandatory, so this is the logical next step.”

Dr Murray Skeaff is Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago, New Zealand

“Earlier this year I attended a conference in Prague at which the results of an as-yet unpublished pooled analysis of all the randomised control trials of folic acid to date were revealed. This analysis, conducted by the Clinical Trials Service Unit at Oxford in the UK, combines the results from around 35,000 individuals who participated in studies of high dosage folic acid supplementation in countries around the world. Most of these trials looked at folic acid and B vitamins and the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

“The results showed that the risk of cancer in those taking B-vitamins was not different from those who were not taking the vitamins. In other words, folic acid did not change cancer risk.”

“They looked at whether men and women in the trials had different risks of cancer from folic acid. They looked at whether people who had low or high folate status at the beginning of the trials had different risks of cancer from folic acid. In each case, they found that folic acid and B vitamins had no effect on cancer risk.

“The results showed no evidence of increased risk for prostate cancer, and they showed no evidence of increased risk for colorectal cancer, which are the two forms of cancer for which some much smaller studies had previously suggested an increased risk.

“These trials included in the pooled analysis used high dosage folic acid, ranging from 800 micrograms to about 5000 micrograms a day. To put this in context, the fortification of bread in Australia will provide women, who are the target group, an extra 120 micrograms per day.

“The pooled analysis involves studies mainly done in Europe and North America, from the mid 1990s to the present, and they’ve looked at the results and specifically at whether the results differed among countries with folic acid fortification schemes in place, and there was no difference.

“This pooled analysis looks at the totality of the scientific evidence from clinical trials. It’s state of the art – the highest quality of analysis that there is. It is the best evidence we have so far, and it shows that there is no increase in cancer risk with high dose folic acid.

“We can be confident on the basis of these trials that concern about cancer risk with mandatory folic acid fortification is unwarranted and unsubstantiated.”

New research out of Denmark shows men and women whose thighs are less than 60cm in circumference have a higher risk of premature death and heart disease. The study also concluded that individuals whose thighs are wider than 60cm have no added protective effect.

Almost 3000 individuals took part in the study in Denmark – the relationship between thigh size and early death and disease was found after taking body fat and other high risk factors (such as smoking and high cholesterol) into account. The authors suggest that the risk from narrow thighs could be associated with too little muscle mass in the region. This is problematic because it may lead to low insulin sensitivity and type 2 diabetes and, in the long run, heart disease, they explain.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like a copy of the paper or would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 8207 7415 or by email.
Professor Tim Olds is a Professor of Health Sciences at the University of South Australia.

“Really interesting. It looks like a solid study. The interesting bit is when thigh circumference is adjusted for percentage body fat. So thigh circumference is probably, as the authors point out, an index of fat-free mass. I doubt it is regional fat-free mass which is important – probably whole-body fat-free mass. So this suggests that fat-free mass is protective against cardiovascular disease independent of fat mass.

This is a very interesting line of research, because it would suggest that interventions which protect or increase muscle mass (such as weight training) may be effective in reducing cardiovascular disease even if no loss of body fat occurs. The American College of Sports Medicine specifically recommends weight training for adults. However, it should be remembered that fat-free mass can represent both genetic and behavioural factors. It could be that those with a large fat-free mass do, or have in the past, exercised more, and it is the exercise which is actually the beneficial factor.

In our Australian dataset, about 75% of men and 80% of women aged 18 and over have thigh girths below the ‘cut-off’ suggested in the paper (60 cm).”

Associate Professor Jon Buckley is Deputy Director of the Nutritional Physiology Research Centre and Co-Director of the ATN Centre for Metabolic Fitness at the Sansom Institute for Health Research at the University of South Australia

“This study suggests that having a low thigh circumference is associated with an increased risk of developing heart disease or dying prematurely. There are plausible physiological mechanisms to support the concept that a low mass of lean tissue in the thighs (which might reflect a low lean tissue mass overall) can predispose to the development of risk factors for heart disease and all cause mortality. It is also well recognized that depositing fat intra-abdominally or in ectopic depots (within organs and tissues) is associated the development of risk factors for heart disease. Thus, if more fat is deposited in subcutaneous fat depots, including on the thighs, this might reduce the risk of developing heart disease for any given level of total body fat. Therefore, having smaller thighs might be a result of a lower lean tissue mass or a reduced deposition of fat into subcutaneous tissue (and hence a greater deposition into more risk associated fat depots), and this might explain why having a low thigh circumference is associated with an increased risk of heart disease or premature death.

Unfortunately however, as pointed out in the editorial by Ian A Scott which accompanies the publication of the paper, while this study did evaluate almost 3000 men and women, the strength of the association between thigh circumference and the risk of disease was not strong enough that this association could be used on a patient by patient basis to determine their individual risk.”

Professor Elizabeth Elliott is Professor of Paediatrics & Child Health at University of Sydney, Children’s Hospital Westmead and Director of the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit. is Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.

Dr Alex Wodak

Professor Mike Daube is Deputy Chair of the Preventative Health Taskforce and President of the Public Health Association of Australia

Michael Moore is CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia

Associate Professor David Crawford is from the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at Deakin University

Professor Fiona Stanley is Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.

Todd Harper is the Chief Executive Officer of VicHealth

Dr Kaye Mehta is a Senior Research Fellow at Flinders Public Health and a Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at Flinders University.

Vicki Briggs is the Manager of the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control at the University of Melbourne

Dr Peter Clifton is the Director of CSIRO’s Nutrition Clinic which Preventative Health Flagship and is a Affiliate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Science University of Adelaide

Professor Rob Moodie is Chair of the National Preventative Health Taskforce and is also Chair of Global Health at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne

Professor Simon Chapman is Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney. He is a sociologist with expertise in tobacco control, media discourses on health and illness, and risk communication.

Professor Ian Olver is Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Council Australia and Chair of the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance

Professor George Rubin is President of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

Anne Jones is Chief Executive of Action on Smoking and Health

Professor Elizabeth Elliott is Professor of Paediatrics & Child Health at University of Sydney, Children’s Hospital Westmead and Director of the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit.“I commend the recommendations of the preventive taskforce regarding alcohol use, which also apply to alcohol use during pregnancy. Pregnant women commonly drink alcohol during pregnancy, posing a risk of adverse outcomes for the unborn child – including low birth weight, prematurity, a range of birth defects and problems with growth and development. The recommendations to improve liquor control regulations (this might include labelling alcoholic beverages), increasing public awareness of the potential harm of alcohol (in this case for the unborn child), attempts to change attitudes to drinking alcohol in Australia (including during pregnancy) and reform to taxation and pricing arrangements will all impact on womens’ attitudes and drinking behaviour during pregnancy.” is Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.

Dr Alex Wodak

“This is an important exercise for many reasons: improving the already good health of Australians will improve our well being and will also help to reduce the (rising) costs of health care.

The targets are all important and achievable. These three issues are the major threats to Australian health and well being.

Working with the food industry to try and reduce obesity sounds logical. But whether the food industry has the capacity to put the public interest first is very doubtful. Based on past experience, I am not hopeful. It is worth trying. But if after a year or so the food industry has shown that it pursues its own interests before the interests of the community, then the government will have to act without the food industry.

I support the strategies chosen to reduce smoking prevalence, especially increasing the price (relative to income). That is the most effective measure.

Australia has been more successful in increasing smoking cessation than reducing smoking initiation. Low cost, high impact measures to increase population quit rates should be expanded.

The prevalence of smoking among several groups in the community is still at the levels that we saw in the general community in the 1960s. These groups include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, people with severe alcohol and drug problems, people with severe mental illness and prison inmates. Equity demands that these groups should have additional assistance with smoking cessation.

Comprehensive alcohol tax reform is the single prevention strategy best supported by evidence of effectiveness. But it only receives half hearted support in these recommendations. Notwithstanding the political difficulties involved in alcohol tax reform, this is the single reform offering greatest benefit and should therefore be the highest priority.

The support for a sustained social marketing and public education strategy is support for a feel good intervention unsupported by evidence of effectiveness.

It is hard to know whether the recommendation on alcohol outlets will result in change. The evidence is clear. Reducing outlet density and restricting the conditions of sale generally results in a reduction of alcohol related harm. This is what we should be doing. But it is very hard for the public health David to overcome the might of the alcohol beverage industry Goliath in the present structures. What is needed is a level playing field so that community and industry representatives can make their case equally.

Improving assistance to people who are having difficulty with alcohol is well worth doing. Most people manage using self help groups and other informal assistance. Treatment services are poorly funded – the quality and quantity of treatment services should be raised to the same level as achieved for other common chronic conditions. The RACP should support supervised disulfiram being considered for the PBS. The emphasis on primary health care an improved services for indigenous Australians is very welcome.”

Professor Mike Daube is Deputy Chair of the Preventative Health Taskforce and President of the Public Health Association of Australia

“This is a blueprint for action to save hundreds of thousands of lives. The report is much more than the usual series of recommendations. The strategy set out to reduce our national toll from obesity, tobacco and alcohol is practical and pragmatic, seeking action not only from governments but from all sectors of the community.

It is time to remove the ‘Cinderella’ tag from prevention. We know what needs to be done and how it should occur. The targets in the report – reducing daily smoking to under 10%, reducing short-term harmful drinking to 14% and longer term harmful drinking to 7%, halting and reversing the rise in overweight and obesity; and contributing to Closing the Gap – are all feasible by 2020 if there is a genuine national commitment.

There are enormous benefits from prevention. Halting the rise in obesity alone will save half a million premature deaths by 2020. The action on smoking proposed will prevent the premature deaths of more than 300,000 Australians now alive. And acting on alcohol not only saves lives, but will also save the health system nearly $2 billion over the next decade. The potential for benefit is staggering.

The Government is to be applauded for the commitment it has already shown to prevention, through the Taskforce, funding through COAG and facing down drinks industry interests over the alcopops tax. There is now an overwhelming case for acting. The evidence is in. We know what needs to be done. We know that the only real opposition will come from commercial interests, but surely the health of the community – and preventing the deaths of nearly one million Australians now alive – is more important than the interests of tobacco companies and other commercial lobby groups.”

Michael Moore is CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia

“Prevention still attracts only 2% of all health funding. We hope that this report will mark a real commitment to providing the funding that prevention needs so that we can make a real impact on the burden of chronic disease that threatens to overwhelm our health systems.”
“We welcome the comprehensive nature of this report. The staged approach to implementation is especially important – the timelines are all feasible, if there is commitment and support from the Government and the community. We know that there is strong public support for action on prevention, and hope that there will be cross-party support for the program of action proposed.”
“There are also important workforce implications from this report. There is a pressing need to ensure a strong prevention workforce to implement the approaches recommended, and we will wish to play a part in ensuring that this occurs.”
“The time for action is now. We commend the Government for establishing the Taskforce, and urge that the strategies proposed be implemented as speedily as possible.”

Associate Professor David Crawford is from the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at Deakin University

“The Preventative Health Taskforce report represents the most comprehensive approach to the prevention of life threatening chronic disease we have seen in this country for at least the past 20 years. Without a strategy such as this the numbers of people affected by diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity will spiral out of control, as will the costs to our health care system. Once implemented this report has the potential to impact the lives of Australians for generations to come. The Federal Govt is to be commended for initiating this work and for the leadership they have shown in relation to health reform. “

Professor Fiona Stanley is Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.

“What is very clear from this report is that we know what to do and how to do it. It’s now a matter of getting on with it without delay. Alcohol, obesity and tobacco all profoundly affect child development and wellbeing from the womb through to adulthood. As a nation – governments, corporates and communities – we must now commit to making it happen.”

The current approaches are unsustainable – we cannot continue to absorb spiralling costs when many of the most burdensome health conditions are lifestyle based and preventable. There is a history of industry opposition to these types of initiatives, but now is the time to stand firm and commit to a pathway that will bring real quality of life to so many people, particularly our children.

Unless we make these changes, there is the real likelihood that our children will have a lower life expectancy than their parents – that cannot be our legacy.”

Todd Harper is the Chief Executive Officer of VicHealth

“There has never been a better time to secure significant and sustained health reforms. The Preventative Health Strategy represents an exciting vision and our best chance in decades to deliver a healthier future for all Australians. We would urge the government not to delay in implementing the taskforce recommendations.

Today, more than ever before, there is a need for good public health strategies. Our current course is unsustainable – with increasing demands on the health system and the worrying rise in chronic disease and an ageing population.

There is no one silver bullet to tackling the rising health burden in Australia caused by tobacco, alcohol and obesity. The multi-faceted approach proposed in the Preventative Health Strategy is crucial to reversing the tide of chronic disease in this country. The strategy details a raft of initiatives that support healthy choices. It’s time now for action.

A National Prevention Agency is a key plank in the reform of our public heath system. Such an agency presents a great opportunity for this country to build on the evidence of what works in health promotion and ensure improved health outcomes for all Australians.

We know that health promotion and prevention works and is cost effective. Australia’s leadership in tobacco, road safety and HIV/AIDS prevention are proven examples of this. The Preventative Health Strategy is based on a robust process of consultation, good evidence and a keen eye on preparing for the future health needs of Australians. We all need to get behind it.”

Dr Kaye Mehta is a Senior Research Fellow at Flinders Public Health and a Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at Flinders University.

“The National Preventive Health Strategy is timely in addressing the serious health problems of obesity, tobacco and harmful use of alcohol. The report provides a comprehensive framework for action at the individual as well as societal level, as indeed have many other similar reports.

The ‘proof of the pudding’ will be in the implementation of the strategies and the establishment of a National Prevention Agency in 2010 provides a structure in which to do this. This agency needs to be adequately resourced to be able to deliver on its ambitious goals.

On the matter of marketing energy-dense nutrient poor foods to children, and its relationship with childhood obesity, it is disappointing to see the continued reliance on ‘soft strategies’ (industry self-regulation) with the promise of government regulations in 4 years time, if this is not effective. We have already had many years of industry self-regulation, during which Australian children have been exposed to unacceptably high levels of ‘junk’ food marketing, and childhood obesity has escalated. Surely NOW IS THE TIME FOR STRONGER ACTION.

There is no sign of industry abating its marketing practices, only a shifting from television advertising to other media, such as the Internet, supermarket sales promotions, sports sponsorship, product placement, etc etc etc. This point is not adequately picked up by the Report, which still focuses on restrictions of TV advertising. In four years time we may indeed see a voluntary decrease in TV advertising, but this will be more than compensated for, by increases in marketing on other media, and our children will still be exposed to high levels of ‘junk food’ marketing. If we are serious about decreasing childhood obesity, then the new National Prevention Agency will have to get much tougher on marketing of energy dense nutrient poor foods to children.

Notwithstanding these criticisms, the recommendation to phase out advertising of energy-dense nutrient-poor foods and beverages before 9pm is positive indeed.”

Vicki Briggs is the Manager of the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control at the University of Melbourne

“Tobacco is directly related to 20% of all Indigenous deaths in this country. Raising the price of cigarettes will make smoking less accessible to Indigenous young people and in my opinion that’s a positive thing. A drop in the prevalence and incidence of Indigenous tobacco smoking will make a substantial contribution to improving health in communities and to closing the gap.”

Dr Peter Clifton is the Director of CSIRO’s Nutrition Clinic which Preventative Health Flagship and is a Affiliate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Science University of Adelaide

“It is good to see they are going to set up a national prevention body that will fund long term research and also good they will legislate within 4 years to ban children’s advertising if voluntary targets don’t work”

Professor Rob Moodie is Chair of the National Preventative Health Taskforce and is also Chair of Global Health at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne

“This is the first ever National Preventative Health Strategy – providing the Government with a road map of guidelines to address these significant health issues.

The Strategy provides recommendations to firstly establish volunteer approaches to educate and change community behaviour before introducing regulatory, pricing and taxation approaches. This is the best opportunity we have had in a generation to significantly improve the health of Australians. Implementation is the key, but it must be implemented over several phases.

This requires progressive, comprehensive, and determined action over the next ten years. We must not let up. We must not sit on our hands. This is the key role of the new proposed National Prevention Agency which will be established in early 2010. It endorses progressive, comprehensive, determined and sustained action.”

Professor Simon Chapman is Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney. He is a sociologist with expertise in tobacco control, media discourses on health and illness, and risk communication.

“It’s ironic that we package prescribed drugs — which save lives — in plain boxes with just the brand name; require users to go to a doctor to get a temporary ‘license’ (a prescription) to obtain a limited supply, while we package cigarettes — which kill 15,000 Australians a year — in beautiful boxes and sell them from every conceivable outlet. It’s time Australia legislated to put cigarettes in plain packaging.

Tobacco company internal documents have said it plainly: ‘A high cigarette price, more than any other cigarette attribute, has the most dramatic impact on the share of the quitting population’ and ‘The most certain way to reduce consumption is through price’. Australian cigarettes cost just $13 a pack. In Ireland they are $20 and in Norway $23.”

Professor Ian Olver is Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Council Australia and Chair of the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance

“Cancer Council Australia and the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance welcome the final recommendations of the Preventative Health Taskforce as a blueprint for action to improve prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases attributed to smoking, obesity and excessive alcohol consumption.

The Government must put the health of Australians first and act immediately to implement the national prevention strategy recommended by the Preventative Health Taskforce in its final report so we can begin to enjoy the long-anticipated population health benefits.

While a number of the taskforce’s recommendations would need to be phased in over time, some – such as raising tobacco excise, restricting advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and simplifying food labelling to help people make healthier choices – should be fast tracked, regardless of vested interests.

Cancer Council Australia also welcomes the establishment of the National Health Promotion and Prevention Agency to implement the national prevention strategy, provided it is given the independence and authority it needed to get the job done.”

Professor George Rubin is President of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

“The Report was well worth the wait. It provides a sturdy framework to improve the health of Australians, with the added advantage of reducing the burden on our health care system.

Australian governments have taken a long time to acknowledge the value of prevention, despite the evidence of successes such as the mandatory use of seatbelts. This Report provides the opportunity for a true commitment to a health system based on wellness and prevention. It’s an opportunity that Australia cannot afford to miss.

Increases in taxation for both alcohol and tobacco will be a positive move given the huge body of evidence that increasing price and availability reduces consumption and related harms. Bringing Australia’s tobacco prices in line with countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom is a much warranted and long overdue step.

Banning smoking in cars where children are present and enforcing plain packaging for tobacco products are excellent moves. As is banning TV advertising of junk food and soft drinks when high numbers of children are viewing. Taking these actions will make Australia a world leader in the field of health and prevention.

The centrepiece of the proposals is the National Prevention Agency. It is essential that the Agency is established with the broad remit recommended in the Report to ensure that the impetus for prevention maintains its energy. The minimalist version in the 2009 Budget papers just won’t get the job done.

My only real criticism is that I am disappointed that the Taskforce stopped short of recommending mandatory traffic light labelling on food and beverages. Traffic light labelling is popular with both the general public and health professionals. Evidence indicates that it helps people across the socioeconomic spectrum to make decisions about healthy food.”

Anne Jones is Chief Executive of Action on Smoking and Health

“Australia has fallen behind other countries in tobacco taxation, without a real increase in a decade. A tobacco tax increase offers the Rudd Government an ideal opportunity to raise funds for health reform in a way that is popular with the community, and will itself help drive smoking rates down – to the benefit of all Australians, particularly those in greatest need.

Tobacco is still our leading cause of preventable death and disease – killing over 15,000 people a year and draining our economy of more than $31b a year in health and social costs. Investing in the fight against tobacco is the single most cost-effective health measure the government can take. We fully support the recommendations of the Taskforce towards extending tobacco public awareness media campaigns and ending all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

After such a long process of consultation, we urge that all these recommendations be implemented without delay. We congratulate the Rudd Government and the Health Minister for their vision – the first step is to fund this health revolution with an urgently-needed increase in tobacco tax.”

BRIEFING DETAILS:
DATE: Monday 5 May 2008
START TIME: 10.00am AEST
VENUE: Melbourne CBD and online
DURATION: Approx 30 min

The 3rd Asia Pacific Nutrigenomics Conference 2008: Diet-Gene Interaction in Human Health and Disease is being held in Melbourne from May 6-9 to look seriously at how much we truly ‘are what we eat’.

Join this Australian Science Media Centre background media briefing with some of the key scientists prior to the start of the conference. The briefing looked at:

• Is there such thing as a fat gene?
• Is obesity pre-programmed in the womb?
• Can you design a diet based on your genes?
• Can food be used to treat and prevent diseases, such as cancer and diabetes?

SPEAKERS:

Ben van Ommen - Director of the European Nutrigenomics Organisation – Can we have personalised diets based on our genes?

Bernhard Breier – Associate Director of the Liggins Institute, New Zealand – Is obesity or even a preference for exercise preprogrammed in the womb?

Michael Fenech – Principle Research Scientist CSIRO Human Nutrition – Can food be used to protect against diseases like cancer?

PRESENTATIONS:

Full Briefing (WebEx):
View here

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415.