After the excitement of ‘Team GB's' unusual success at the Beijing Olympics, Aurora was feeling a little flat after the closing ceremony, combined with the less than balmy ‘Summer' weather, the last Bank Holiday before Christmas and that ‘back to school' feeling!

However, with the prospects of the start of the football season; London gearing up for 2012; buying a Winter coat; cosy pub lunches in front of a log fire; Autumn leaves and only twelve weeks until Christmas, Aurora cheered up considerably and is looking forward to the ‘new term'.

Please read on for Team Aurora's medal winning summary of health media activity in August.

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Yet again the ‘big three' remained dominant. Cancer took the top spot from nutrition and obesity moved up one place to number two. But the rest of the chart looked very different with six re-entries and three brand new entries; osteoporosis, hypertension and hearing/ear conditions.

Below we look at some of the health stories that got us all talking this month.

Dental health issues marked tenth place in the chart with a number of stories throughout the month. The Daily Express reported on new figures released by the NHS Information Centre which stated that almost half of all patients in some areas of the country do not get NHS dental care and one in four dentists plans to leave the NHS because they are dissatisfied with the new Government contract introduced in 2006. The figures also revealed that 800,000 fewer people have seen a dentist since the reforms, which were meant to boost patient numbers.

It also emerged in The Daily Telegraph that those patients who do have access to a NHS dentist are facing delays for millions of fillings, root canals and other dental treatments. Figures released by the Department of Health on August 6th showed that more people could have trouble finding treatment over the next year.

Further criticism came later in the month in articles which appeared in The Times, the Daily Mail and The Sun stating that, according to the Conservatives, NHS patients have paid £4.5 million in dental charges since 1997 when Labour came to power, amid widespread shortages of NHS dentists.

It was therefore hardly surprising that The Sunday Times reported that “tooth tourism” is booming in this country. It reported that a set of tooth implants overseas costs up to £40,000 less than here in the UK and that costs could fall even further thanks to new European Union (EU) legislation. The EU plans to introduce rules that will allow dissatisfied British medical and dental patients to receive treatment in a member state of their choice and reclaim all or part of the cost from the NHS.

Arthritis re-entered the chart and shot up to sixth position due to a number of different stories. A Daily Telegraph report stated that thousands of people with arthritis who hope that their private medical insurance will provide them with all the latest drugs if they fall seriously ill, have been advised to check their policies. This was after NICE indicated that it will soon deny tens of thousands of people with rheumatoid arthritis access to several powerful drugs.

The draft NICE ruling to restrict patients' access to the £100-a-week drugs, even if other treatments have failed, prompted nurses to threaten to take court action against the Government. The Royal College of Nursing is appealing against the proposals and warned it will apply for a judicial review if NICE does not back down, reported the Daily Mail.

The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and Daily Express reported the good news that a revolutionary vaccine that could cure rheumatoid arthritis is being developed by British scientists and could be available within five years. A team at Newcastle University are in the early stages of trialling a drug that could halt progress of the disease, which affects more than 350,000 people in the UK.

Another exciting development in the area was reported in the Daily Mail and The Times. A simple scan could save millions from the crippling pain of arthritis. The test, a form of the MRI scan used in hospitals every day, could catch osteoarthritis when it is still in the early stages, preventing or reducing damage to the joints. Researcher Dr Alexej Jerschow, of New York University, used the MRI scanner to measure levels of glycosaminoglycan, the compound that makes the cartilage tough and elastic - a low level indicates the onset of osteoarthritis.

Cholesterol-related issues.  At the beginning of the month The Independent picked up on a research paper from the journal Circulation in which Professor Daniel Steinberg of the University of California stated that treatment to lower cholesterol should begin in childhood in order to maximise its efficacy at preventing heart disease. He also states that doctors have been slow to measure cholesterol levels in children.

The Sun covered a separate story about children and cholesterol. It quoted a study which reported that breastfed babies have lower cholesterol levels in later life. Higher cholesterol is more likely in adults who were raised on formula milk as infants.

In advance of the NICE guidelines on familial hypercholesteroalaemia (FH), which were announced at the end of the month, Dr Alan Rees, chairman of H.E.A.R.T UK, was reported to say that it was a disgrace that the NHS had diagnosed so few people with the condition. Only 15,000 people in the UK have been diagnosed, leaving an estimated 100,000 unaware that they have FH. The condition is a treatable inherited genetic defect that results in markedly elevated LDL (low-density lipoprotein) levels, beginning at birth and can cause heart attacks at an early age.

The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Mirror all reported on the NICE announcement that children from the age of ten, with a family member diagnosed with FH, will now be screened for elevated LDL-cholesterol.

And finally, the August Summer holiday ‘silly' season provided a number of weird and wonderful stories which intrigued us here in the office. Here are a couple of our favourites…

The Mail on Sunday reported about a community of four foot dwarfs living in a remote corner of Ecuador that could hold the key to curing cancer, according to scientists. The Laron dwarfs, who are in perfect proportion but only grow to an average height of four foot, appear to be immune from all forms of the disease and are long-lived. The group lack a hormone called insulin-like Growth Factor 1 or IGF1. The Ecuadorian Institute of Endocrinology said: “Every experiment has demonstrated that high levels of IGF1 are associated with cancer, but these patients have low levels of the hormone, and an absence of the disease.”

Also in the Mail on Sunday was an article about a Government-funded campaign being launched to encourage people to exercise while they're waiting for a bus. According to the organisers of the Every Stop Helps campaign, those minutes spent at the bus stop watching the traffic go by could be spent more usefully - by standing on one leg or clenching your buttocks. The practice may look amusing but we're willing to try it.

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Aurora strives to apply quantitative, qualitative and emotional understanding of health issues to client communication programmes. Dove-tailing informed PR activity with the media's appetite enables us to assist clients with communicating their vision.

To find out more, contact Neil Crump or Claire Eldridge on 020 7424 7940. 

The top 20 chart provides our interpretative snap-shot of health stories in the national press and is based upon a quantitative process. Analysis based on news from the 26 July to 25 August.