Research into infertility, healthy eating and the cause of allergies are among health studies to receive more than $58 million in funding this year.
The Health Research Council has announced recipients of $24.8 million in research programme funding, and $33.9 million in health project funding for 2013.
Council chief executive Dr Robin Olds said health project funding was focused on those with potential to change healthcare delivery in a short time, by offering practical solutions to clinical problems.
"Funding such research is a key way to ensure that research discoveries move from the bench top to the bedside in the shortest possible time," he said.
Recipients include a clinical trail of a video-game based treatment for 'lazy eye', or amblyopia, delivered using an ipod touch. Preliminary studies by Dr Benjamin Thompson from the University of Auckland show the game can improve sharpness of vision and 3D vision in just six weeks.
Four studies related to pregnancy have been funded, including an Otago University study looking at infertility caused by high prolactin in the blood, a factor for one in six infertile couples.
Five major studies, all of which are expected to take five years, have each received almost $5 million in programme funding.
Auckland University received about $31.2m of the funding while Otago University received about $15.5m
Otago's deputy vice-chancellor of research and enterprise, Professor Richard Blaikie, said the council's funding was highly contested.
"This is an endorsement of the calibre of work undertaken by Otago's researchers and a vote of confidence in their ability to generate significant research outcomes that promise to advance our health and wellbeing."
Full details of recipients are available at www.hrc.govt.nz/funding-opportunities/recipients
ALLERGIES
Finding the cause of allergies, which affect one in five Kiwis, is the aim of a study by Wellington's Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.
Allergy specialist Professor Graham Le Gros said despite the rise in prevalence and severity of allergies, very little was known about their cause.
He said the attention had been on treating symptoms, such as developing asthma drugs, rather than preventing allergies.
"When you first become allergic you don't feel it, it happens we now think many years before, probably in early childhood," he said.
"This study is allowing us to get right down to the basics: when does the first allergic sensitising event occur? When does it start? how does it start?
"We hope we're going to pick up clues to try to find out what is the change in the environment, what is the change in the way we bring up kids that's now making them more allergic, and allergic to more things."
Professor Le Gros said the study had three approaches: Investigating the cells that start the immune system, the cells that are activated by allergic sensitisation, and whether some parasitic infections may switch off allergic response.
A link to parasites would explain why developed countries with improved sanitation have a greater incidence of allergies.
Professor Le Gros said the study would utilise new technology to model the emergence of allergic disease.
"We have a combination of really super-duper new technologies, models of allergic disease and some really smart clinicians and scientists from around the world coming together for the first time here in New Zealand."
The five-year study will receive just under $5 million.
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NEONATAL LOW BLOOD SUGAR
Low blood sugar affects up to 15 per cent of babies, and is on the rise as risk factors including diabetes and premature births become more common.
Professor Jane Harding from the University of Auckland will test whether an oral gel applied shortly after birth can prevent low blood sugar.
Professor Harding said blood glucose concentrations normally fell in the first one to two hours after birth, and then began to rise again.
"In some babies, this physiological fall in blood glucose may persist, and if untreated, potentially may cause permanent brain damage."
The oral dextrose gel, a cheap and painless intervention, has already been shown to be effective in reversing hypoglycaemia.
She said the gel would be used on at risk babies, such as small or premature babies and those with mothers suffering diabetes.
"At the moment if babies do have low blood sugar levels and they don't come up for feeding, then usually what happens is they are admitted to the neo-natal unit for a drip to get extra sugar through their drip.
"So what we're hoping is to keep babies out of intensive care and with their mums."
Professor Harding said the funding boost was "very nice" because of the importance of the project to babies' health.
A randomised trail will now investigate its effectiveness for prevention.
The three-year study will receive $1.2 million.
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HEALTHY EATING
Ways to encourage people to make healthier food choices will be the subject of a five-year study by Auckland University, which will receive just under $5 million in funding.
The research led by Associate Professor Cliona Ni Mhurchu will look at four interventions to identify the most effective ways to improve diet and population health.
Unhealthy diet plays a role in 11,000 deaths each year in New Zealand, and healthier eating is important in preventing common diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes.
This research will assess four methods of encouraging healthier choices, including simple front-of-pack nutrition labels, policies to make healthy foods cheaper, changing the make-up of food to reduce salt and saturated fat, and restricting food marketing to children. The study will use technology to test each intervention and measure their effect on diet and long-term health.
Professor Ni Mhurchu said at the moment there was not clear evidence on which intervention was most effective to encourage people to buy healthy food.
"At the moment the areas we're focussing on, around things like labelling and pricing are areas where we don't have very good evidence about what really impacts on people's behaviour and food choices."
She hoped the burden of diet-related disease on the country's health system would ease as a result of the study.
"It has a large cost attached to it in terms of disease and death, but also in terms of cost to the health system and the productivity of our workforce."
Findings will help inform policies on the most effective and cost-effective ways to improve population diets and health.
