The £1 million initiative is an attempt by the Government to reduce increasing obesity rates among young children. One-in-seven primary schoolchildren are now seriously overweight and experts predict that the problem could dramatically worsen in coming decades. Up to 20,000 primary school pupils at risk of developing weight problems will be targeted by a new generation of “lifestyle coaches”. The specially-trained staff (to include teachers and parents) will give selected children an extra hour of physical activity every week – on top of conventional PE lessons. Government officials said the sessions would be aimed at boosting children’s confidence, improving fitness and cutting weight. Activities are also expected to include yoga, martial arts and free running – a form of street acrobatics in which participants use walls, stairs and railings to perform stunts.

Quite the opposite in fact, we are healthy and happy to be making good progress with our sustainable business initiative, having received ‘going green’ status from the Camden Climate Change Alliance who provide an excellent free service to small businesses in Camden. And, while envy can be defined as “regretting one’s failure to achieve success or good fortune”, we are pleased to have achieved the implementation of various energy saving schemes within our office and in our wider business interactions, and have begun to cut our carbon emissions.

So it is onwards and upwards at Aurora as we develop a sustainable business approach that is both efficient and creative. Tailoring our communications strategies to different working environments has always been a strength at Aurora, so combining innovative work with environmental consciousness presents an exciting and welcome challenge to the team. The pharmaceutical industry, like the world around us, is changing in many ways in the twenty-first century, and amongst the most prominent of global changes is increased awareness of, and reaction to, the perceived threat of climate change.

Our clients appreciate the commitment we have to environmental sustainability as it reflects our compassionate social conscience and our cost-effective agency running. As well as providing clients and the borough of Camden with the fruits of our energy-saving efforts, we are also pleased to accept the personal benefits that are part of the package. Employing energy-efficient business solutions speeds up and simplifies daily office running and, as several of the Aurora team will testify, cycling to work to reduce pollution also does wonders for the health.

If the weather ever brightens up this year, we may see more bikes around town than ever before. Joining the Ride to Work scheme, as Aurora has, is one easy and satisfying way to turn green, saving up to 50% on bike and safety equipment purchases. There are plenty of other ways and we all know what they are. It’s just a case of taking the initiative to make behavioural changes that will benefit society and the environment. Whatever the sceptics say, it is worth reading what those in the know have to say about the current situation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, set up by the United Nations Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization, is a body dedicated to rigorous scientific assessment of climate change. This website, Climate Skeptic, is a leading source of information for the other side of the debate. I’ll let you decide.

The chart for February has been an interesting one. For the second month in a row swine flu has been kept off the top spot, this month having been relegated all the way down to twelfth place, its lowest position since the initial outbreak. Have the pigs finally flown? We’ve seen five re-entries this month, and one new entry from bowel disease – the first new contender in the top 20 since October last year.

For the second time in a row, multiple sclerosis has made the top 20, and has even climbed a place following last month’s re-entry. 

To view the full version of this month’s top 20 please click here.

The study from scientists at the University of California Berkeley found that a Spanish-style siesta after lunch does more than just refresh the body and mind, it also makes it easier for the brain to store and retrieve items of short-term information needed for working or studying. The study took 39 healthy volunteers who were divided into two groups. At noon, both groups took part in a series of rigorous learning tests intended to tax a region of the brain called the hippocampus, which is known to be involved in the formation of short-term memory. One of the groups was then asked to take a 90-minute nap at 2.00 pm, while the other group stayed awake. Both were then asked to take part in a subsequent set of tests at 6.00 pm to see how well they could continue learning. Those who had remained awake during the afternoon performed significantly worse in terms of learning ability at 6.00 pm than those who had taken the nap. The people who had slept not only did better, they actually improved their capacity to learn. Dr Matthew Walker, a psychologist at the University of California Berkeley commented, “It’s as though the email inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact emails, you’re not going to receive any more mail. It’s just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder.”

Grandpa, who is also partial to an afternoon nap, will be reassured to read that the older generation need just as much sleep as the young. A study from the University of California, San Diego, dispelled the myth that the amount of sleep we need deceases with age. Dr Sean Drummond, a psychologist at the University commented, “It’s a fallacy. The quantity of sleep that we need does not go down as we age, but the ability to sleep in one chunk gets lost.” The middle aged and elderly are more likely to suffer from an interrupted night’s sleep due to health problems – forcing them to adapt to cat napping or coping with tiredness in the day. Most people need between seven and nine hours a night.
While the Postie and Grandpa can continue to nap soundly with this knowledge, the rotters and their nappies have returned to the nest.

So, convincing myself that I am a servant of the community, I have conducted a prospective, randomised, multi-centred clinical trial of the various egg and bacon sandwiches available in the locality of our Camden-based office. (In actual fact, no such methodological rigour was employed and I just noted down a brief review of each sandwich).

But before we get into the statistical analysis of the data set, let’s look at the effects on the body of eating that most tempting of meaty treats; the humble rasher of succulent, delicious, fill-your-nostrils-with-the-smell-of-heaven bacon: Well, it raises your cholesterol, clogs your arteries, gives you heart disease and heart attacks and strokes at a young age, gives you diabetes, bowel cancer, stomach cancer and it will destroy your lungs and give you chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and bronchitis (and that’s without smoking it).

Of course, all of this is strictly not true but scientific truth is a tough concept to wield. Being more ‘diplomatic’, I should say processed or cured meats such as bacon may increase strain on your heart, have been linked with gastrointestinal cancers and one study has shown that eating them every other day makes you 14 times more likely to have COPD.

Anyway, the results of the test are as follows:

Orange Cafe (Bayham Street NW1)

Their bacon and fried egg baguette is highly satisfying but heavily buttered which adds to an already very greasy sarnie. When I remember, I request that my baguette is left unbuttered. They are also a bit stingy with the ketchup and if you ask for more, it gets drenched. Crucially, however, generous portions of egg and bacon are served making this a generally fulfilling £2.50 spend. ♥♥♥♥

Caffe 43 (Pratt Street NW1)

This bacon and fried egg sandwich on decent brown bread is lighter than the Orange Cafe’s offering, giving it a healthier but less filling feel. Of course the extra roughage in the bread makes for a more wholesome snack and provides essential nutrients and fibre, which is a plus. At £2.40 though, I’d rather spend the extra 10p for the more substantial baguette. ♥♥♥

Camden Cafe (Pratt Street NW1)

The bread used is of the cheap, white variety but good, thick bacon gives a solid fill and the sandwich has a well composed structure. Ketchup is of suitable quantity and the item is good value at £2.20. Maybe it was just my mood, but this one really hit the spot and felt as if it had been well made by an experienced craftsman. ♥♥♥♥

So, no samples have yet hit the five heart mark – the search goes on. Unfortunately, my trousers don’t!

Recently I was asked by my colleagues to deliver a refresher presentation on common statistical methods used when analysing clinical data. Now I should categorically state upfront that I’m not a statistician or any form of mathematical whiz, but out of us all I perhaps have a more natural aptitude for this sort of geekiness. When pulling the slides together I had to delve into the deepest recesses of my mind to try and remember what I learnt at school and university, and by harnessing the power of the internet I was able to fill in the fairly large gaps. What struck me first was just how much I’d forgotten (or perhaps just not retained in the first place), but it also got me thinking about the value of statistics, the degree of trust you can place in them and the terminology surrounding them. In particular, I got a little side tracked on the word ‘confidence’ and the difference in meaning between the common usage and statistical usage. I think it’s fair to say that the difference is quite confusing to the layman. And then what about p-values and statistical significance? Even for the partially informed, the world of medical statistics is a bit of a minefield that needs to be navigated carefully to ensure no misinterpretation occurs.

I’m beginning to believe that a basic grasp of medical statistics should be a requirement of every healthcare PR practitioner. And no, this is not just because I’m doing this presentation! At Aurora, in the last month, we have reviewed, read or referenced 170 clinical papers between us. As we frequently write press releases and backgrounders for the media based on clinical trial data we need to be confident that we understand the data to begin with and that we’re not relaying misinformation. Yes, all materials are reviewed by company medics and regulatory approvers; however I do believe we have a responsibility to understand what P ≤ 0.05 et al. really means.

So does this statistical minefield also exist for doctors and nurses too? As I understand it, statistical confidence intervals provide clinicians with the exact information in a form that helps them decide whether to administer a particular therapy or not. My GP is not only a lovely lady, but a highly trained professional, however how confident am I that she is confident in interpreting confidence intervals? What about calculating relative risk reduction (RRR) vs. absolute risk reduction (ARR) vs. numbers needed to treat (NNT) as is required when applying clinical evidence to the care of individual patients? In layman’s terms, I would say I’m 95% confident in her abilities although I’m not sure whether her statistical skills are called into play every day and if they are therefore not a little rusty. In days of yore, I participated in a meeting with some of the UK’s most senior and respected specialist oncology nurses. As part of the meeting, a clinical statistics refresher lecture was given and this was unanimously voted the most beneficial session of the day. It does raise the question as to whether this should be an area for on-going professional development?

Statistics in general can be easily manipulated to convey as much or as little as you want - 75% of people asked prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate (but I only asked 4 people) – so they need to be handled with care and a modicum of respect. The more accurately we can interpret them, the clearer the picture will be. Of that I am 100% confident.

The chart for January has seen some interesting movement and re-entries. Swine flu’s eight month unbeaten run at the top (the longest in top 20 history) has come to an end and a boozy Christmas and New Year has seen alcohol swallow up the first top spot of 2010 ahead of cancer and nutrition. Six re-entries hit the chart this month including multiple sclerosis, for which promising new oral drugs have been in the news.

So we finally see swine flu fall from grace at the top of the table as the pig walks off with its tail between its legs. So overbearing has been the tyranny of the pig that the last time we saw another therapeutic area atop the chart was April 2009. The shelf-life of swine flu has astonished us all at Aurora. In particular, the quantity and breadth of the coverage has been consistently high in volume and wide ranging. So why has the New Year seen the biggest health story of last year drop three places to number four? Whilst it satisfied the WHO’s official definition for a pandemic, swine flu (thankfully) never reached the predicted levels of human devastation. As the pandemic has died down, the media pandemonium too is dropping off and much of the coverage has now shifted towards post-analysis. For example, one story reported surplus swine flu vaccines in the UK being donated to developing countries.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) sneaks its way into the top 20 this month as news of effective new oral treatments for people with MS was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and, subsequently, widely reported in the media. This coverage was due, in part, to Aurora who developed the media campaign for Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd. The two drugs in the limelight, which work in totally different ways are Novartis’ fingolimod and Merck Serono’s cladribine. According to the coverage, the arrival of tablets to treat MS will improve patient choice by providing an alternative to injections and infusions. While separate studies showed the two drugs to have similar levels of efficacy against placebo, the majority of media outlets, including the Daily Telegraph and the Times reported an additional NEJM published trial for fingolimod, which confirmed its “superiority versus a current standard of care”. Fingolimod news was also covered on BBC 1 Breakfast and the ITV News at Ten and has been widely written about across the web including on the NHS Choices website.

Alcohol has been splashed all over the news since Christmas, with much reporting focusing on the burden on the NHS of irresponsible drinking. National dailies ran the story of a report from the Royal College of Physicians, which warned that the health effects of British drinking culture are “unsustainable” and that immediate action must be taken. Visit our blog and read what one of the Aurora team had to say about media reporting of alcohol consumption. Health effects of drinking and associated legislation are clearly highly politicised health topics. The Government is determined to appear to be taking a tough stance on binge drinking and we have all read, with mixed feelings, the news that minimum alcohol prices will be raised to stem the rising tide of boozy Britain. But who does this tactic target? It’s a tough moral dilemma whether it is right for all drinkers to pay up in the hope that drink-related adverse health effects will go down.

And finally, one story that caught Aurora’s eye this month appeared at first to be offering a free holiday in sun-drenched Mexico. Intrigued, we read further and found that there was a bit of a catch. The destination was selected not for its beautiful beaches or tasty local cuisine, but instead for the prevalence of bacteria that cause diarrhoea. The lucky holiday makers would then be given a remedy for the gastrointestinal condition to test its efficacy. It’s a drug trial with a twist alright, but with the recent freezing weather in Blighty, it might be worth signing up!

There is no side stepping the issue: The best way to a healthier diet is to prepare everything you eat yourself. That’s the only way you can be sure of what’s in it. But it takes time, organisation and effort.  Oh, and desire, which I definitely don’t have for cooking. I wish there was a way you could lose weight by eating fast food as put forward in The New York Times yesterday. Reading the comments to Drive-Thru Dieting, I have to agree that there are no short cuts to eating healthily.

It is so much easier to grab a sandwich, or even a wholesome soup, from Pret or Eat at lunchtime than to prepare lunch before I’ve even had my breakfast. But even the ‘healthy options’ with ‘less than 5% fat’ are not good for those wishing to shed the pounds. As this article explains, fast-food companies are now marketing ‘low-calorie’ options, but you can never be sure what that means. Even if it is low in calories, it may contain high levels of salt. According to a paper in the NEJM this month, cutting back on salt even by a small amount can reduce cases of heart disease and stroke as much as losing weight, lowering cholesterol or even stopping smoking.

So there’s only one thing for it. As well as cycling and joining a tennis league (help), I am going to have to make all my meals from scratch. That’ll be the day.

The George Clooney-organised, celeb-fest telethon ‘Hope for Haiti Now’ has shattered all previous US records for telethon fund raisers. It has raised over $58 million so far with the total rising daily. Apart from the traditional ways of raising money, much of the donations have been driven by social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Red Cross has raised nearly £2 million in donations via their text message campaign – people text a number to get a donation added to their mobile phone bill. The idea is simple and removes the need for Pay Pal accounts and credit cards. The Haiti-born singer Wyclef Jean has also made use of this technology on his personal blog.

Twitter@RedCross is keeping donors and potential donors updated about the amount raised and most importantly how the money is helping the people of Haiti.

Celebrities are also getting involved with the social media side of money-raising efforts, The US TV star Alyssa Milano has issued ‘Tweet Challenges’ asking big corporations to match donations made by the public.

On Facebook, over 91,000 people have joined the group “Every person that joins we will donate $1 to help people in Haiti’.

All these things made me think about how we interact in times of trouble and the cross over between mainstream and social media. The world definitely feels smaller; there are so many ways people can contribute funds, moral support, first hand experiences, photos or simply opinions. That’s got to be a good thing.

Unlike the bulk of the Aurora team, I was a self-confessed social media sceptic, (one of the few people never to have tackled Facebook) and naively initially dismissed it as something for the ‘yoof’ or people who don’t engage in real life, I have found myself increasingly won over. I even have a Twitter account. In particular, the way that the Haiti news story has been reported and the ways in which people have contributed directly shows social media in a different light, it has a serious side and indeed a social conscience.

Please visit the Red Cross website if you want to make a donation.

With both Optimum Brand and Mediamedic, GLOBALHealthPR amplifies its level of expertise to include over 300 healthcare communications specialists from 12 member agencies in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

“The addition of both Optimum Brand and Mediamedic, well-established and reputable agencies, enhances our network’s reach and influence in important health care markets,” said Neil Crump, managing director of Aurora.

GLOBALHealthPR maintains long-standing partnerships, spanning four continents, with successful, intuitive agencies that have renowned expertise serving health clients in their local markets.

Founded in 1996, OptimumBrand is based in Istanbul and dedicated to developing innovative communications solutions for local and international clients. Seyhan Ayel Girit, Founder and General Manager of OptimumBrand, leads her experienced team carefully developing the best possible strategy unique to each healthcare client’s needs.

Mediamedic Communications is a Mumbai-based agency dedicated to healthcare communications across the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and health foods sector. Established in 2000, Priti Mohile and Dinesh Chindarkar, co-founders and Managing Directors, lead a team of professionals with a vast understanding of the health industry, marketing communications and government regulations in India and throughout Asia.

An exciting start to the new decade for our organisation.