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Home » Diets that Work » Otago professor honoured after career researching the link between diet and health – Stuff.co.nz

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University of Otago professor Jim Mann was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

From working as a junior doctor in South Africa, to teaching in the hallowed halls of the University of Oxford, professor Jim Mann has had a varied and distinguished career.

Now the University of Otago academic has been made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to health.

Its the second time Mann, 77, has been awarded a title, having been made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002.

He was overwhelmed, but said he almost deleted the email notifying him of the accolade.

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I had no idea, whatsoever, he said.

Like many other people, when I open up my email I delete three quarters of the rubbish.

There was one that was just entitled honours. It almost got deleted and something just made me think perhaps I should have a look at what it was.

Mann has pioneered research relating to non-communicable disease prevention and management at University of Otagos Departments of Medicine and Human Nutrition since 1988.

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Professor Jim Mann says many diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, are preventable.

His work has been included in almost 400 scientific publications and 90 book chapters and has informed world-leading interventions in the fields of coronary heart disease and diabetes.

The award is recognition of what he and his colleagues have done for a long period of time, he said.

My interests have changed over time, quite a lot. My PhD was more in biochemistry and lab work, but I have gradually become more clinically and public health oriented.

My personal interest has been research in terms of what lifestyle can do for diseases like diabetes. The epidemic of type 2 diabetes is largely a preventable disease.

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With New Zealand weighing in as one of the most obese nations in the world, University of Otago researchers say it's the perfect time to introduce their world-first medical weight loss device.

Mann was born and educated in South Africa, after his father went there from London to work as a GP. He relocated to Oxford, in the United Kingdom, to continue his studies, where he would later teach.

His work, he said, was inspired by two leading figures of disease prevention.

He did his postgraduate studies alongside Sir Richard Doll, the British epidemiologist who was a key figure in establishing the link between smoking and lung cancer.

Doll and his colleagues produced conclusive data, but it took an awful lot of perseverance to persuade the world, he said.

It has been the same in the role of diet and nutrition as a cause of diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Mann was also very heavily influenced by the pioneering physician Hubert Trowell who studied the link between diet and diabetes.

He went from Britain to Central Africa. He observed that the diseases of Western affluence were starting to emerge in Uganda.

Today, Mann is especially interested in the inequity of health care in treatment and prevention of the diseases, and he has been director of Healthier Lives: He Oranga Hauora National Science Challenge, since 2015.

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Manns research has reinforced the link between nutrition and a number of life limiting diseases.

The initiative aims to improve prevention and treatment of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity in New Zealand.

It is something Mann is passion about, but said changing attitudes takes years of research and a great deal of perseverance.

Just increasing the amount of dietary fibre, which has been a major interest of mine, can profoundly reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease and colorectal cancer.

People are still not doing what we want them to do, but I think the tide has turned.

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Otago professor honoured after career researching the link between diet and health - Stuff.co.nz

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Home » Diets that Work » Otago professor honoured after career researching the link between diet and health – Stuff.co.nz