As we experience a very welcome final blast of summer sunshine, the end of September marks the shift into Autumn and, with the start of new school and university terms and the onset of colder weather and darker nights, a season of new and different health issues for everyone, including the media, to deal with.

The September top six includes all of the August top five with the addition of heart attack, which makes an appropriate accomplice for obesity, alcohol abuse and nutrition. In fact, there are only six entries in this month's top 20 that were not there last month. Some of these are explained further below. Of the staple regulars, a plethora of angles were taken on common public health interest stories, proving how much detail and variety the public enjoy when reading about the issues that affect them most closely and frequently.

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There were some positive stories about nutrition this month with news that tea reduces cancer, diabetes and heart disease risks, broccoli cuts dangers of heart attack and stroke, blueberry smoothies combat dementia and vegetables help the skin. A good mix of alcohol-related troubles have received coverage this month, as pensioners, women in their forties and youths were all identified by the media as high risk groups. News of drink-related incidents rising was also reported but was balanced by the surprising finding that teetotallers are more susceptible to depression and anxiety than moderate drinkers, who fend off dementia with each responsible beverage. Regarding obesity and weight loss, there has been a growth in numbers of young people resorting to pills to lose weight. Government plans favour sending overweight children to ‘fat camps' and banning school canteen junk food over diet pills.

Swine flu still tops the bill, enjoying its fifth consecutive month in pole position since bursting onto the scene as a new entry on the Aurora chart in May. Trotting straight in at number one, the media dominance of swine flu has been astonishing, penetrating all areas and types of health news, in particular this month being linked to other conditions such as obesity, pregnancy, heart disease, heart attacks and diabetes. Swine flu coverage has, however, been waning in volume in the last two months; having peaked in July, August saw a large decline which has continued in the last 30 days to leave swine flu with a modest lead at the top of the Aurora chart. Although another surge is suspected to hitch a piggy-back ride on school and university pupils who return to education and create perfect flu breeding communities, for the purposes of this month's analysis, we can enjoy some more varied health news and place swine flu, in relative terms, on the back burner.

Heart attacks have featured highly in the health news this month. Three national newspapers offered different criteria for increasing your chances of having a cardiac arrest. The Daily Telegraph reported that living near a busy road and experiencing the intrusion of traffic noise on a daily basis can cause stress, high blood pressure and, in turn, increased heart attack risk. The Daily Express warns housewives that they should get out to work to make heart attacks less likely while, for The Times, it's simply being a Brit that puts you at risk. Well there's not a lot you can do about that. In terms of medicinal treatment, while the potential side effects of a specific heart pill were discussed in one report, news also came through of that same pill cutting deaths caused by heart attacks. Finally, one greatly pleasing story this month, featured in The Sunday Times and Daily Mirror, relayed that heart attacks have plummeted as a direct result of the smoking ban. It is heartwarming to see positive results after two years without public indoor smoking.

Some significant news in HIV and Aids developed in the media this month. Starting with the discovery of two powerful new antibodies that combat HIV, researchers dared to believe they were closer to the possibility of an HIV vaccine. This massively exciting news for the HIV community was then followed by widespread reports from a broad range of national newspapers of an experimental vaccine showing a 31.2 per cent reduction in infection risk among a section of the 16,000 trial volunteers. These results have been heralded as an “historic breakthrough” and have raised hopes, almost for the first time, in an area of major ressearch. We will continue to observe these developments in the hope that valuable preventative options will be forthcoming.

E. coli was the first new entry we have had in the Aurora top 20 since May of this year and it even managed to infect the top 10. This started with news of a petting farm in Surrey where 12 children fell seriously ill after contracting the bacterial infection. This instigated an outbreak of media coverage of the development of this and other cases up and down the country. After several closures of farms and petting zoos to avoid further infection, experts advised that children should be prevented from touching animals in these situations unless conditions are monitored and kept safe. It will be a sad day when the school trip to the petting zoo doesn't actually involve any petting, but with incidences up in September, this potentially fatal gastrointestinal infection needs to be controlled.

Cancer has really made its mark on the media landscape this month. General cancer stories assumed a position at the top of the chart and breast, cervical and prostate cancer were all placed too. There was even a rare mention of stomach and bowel cancers, as a humble blood test was proposed as a method for early detection to boost survival rates. As ever, the media has bombarded us with news about cancer in relation to a variety of other therapeutics areas, such as fertility problems, anxiety and heart disease, and the usual smoking, obesity, nutrition and high blood pressure related stories. Additionally, several broader health themes have been assigned to cancer stories, including therapy delivery, drug related stories, industry activity and patient group action.

So, what has been revving up the news in September? Let's take a look at the Aurora rev-counter, which aims to provide a snapshot of what's driving the health news each month:

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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 +44 (0) 20 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 August 2009 to 25 September 2009.