KUBANG KERIAN, KELANTAN, 25 April 2016 - “Publications in high-impact journals would normally require teamwork in exercising data collection and analysis, and in the publication of those articles.”

That was stated by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) School of Health Sciences (PPSK) Deputy Dean, Associate Professor Dr. Lim Boon Huat when commenting on the success of Dr. Foo Leng Huat for his research entries in the prestigious Lancet Journal.

Dr. Foo Leng Huat, a senior lecturer at PPSK, has successfully published three articles in the journal, one in 2015 and two this year.

In 2015, his article published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology (Lancet/IF: 9.185) touched on effects of diabetes definition on global surveillance of diabetes prevalence and diagnosis, with a pooled analysis of 96 population-based studies with 331,288 participants.

The article which was solely written by Dr. Foo suggested that different blood assessment tests may detect possibilities of diabetes occurrences and identifying those who do not even have prior diagnosis of having diabetes.

Then in 2016, two articles (Lancet/IF: 45.217) have been published; the first looked at trends in adult body-mass index in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014: a pooled analysis of 1698 population-based measurement studies with 19.2 million participants.

This article was co-written with Associate Professor Dr Kamarul Imran Musa, from the USM School of Medical Sciences (PPSP). The article indicated that the world global obese population is at 640 million, with one in ten men and one in seven women is obese globally.

The second article was concerned with worldwide diabetes trends since 1980: a pooled analysis of 751 population-based studies with 4.4 million participants, the study being the largest globally on diabetes levels. It reported that incidences of diabetes are becoming more common as the ageing levels of populations increase.

The findings indicate the need for an effective health system that can highlight those at high risk of diabetes or at pre-diabetes stage. Healthcare staff can then deliver medication and lifestyle advice to delay or even prevent the onset of the condition.

According to Dr. Foo, teamwork was indeed an essential aspect in conducting any impactful research and publication.

“In fact the research projects which I participated involved a global effort and were collaborative in nature.

“For example, the research on non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factor was led by researchers from Imperial College London, and involving the World Health Organisation (WHO), together with other well-known scientists from various government-related research institutions and universities the world over,” he said further.

He added that the research projects, being global in scope, were conducted through fundings from The Wellcome Trust in UK and Grand Challenges Canada.

The Lancet is the world’s leading independent general medical journal. It publishes articles on all aspects of human health and is of the highest standards, being stringently-edited and peer-reviewed. The journal is presently ranked second from 150 journals which relate to General and Internal Medicine, and with an Impact Factor (IF) of 39.207.

Text: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin and Tan Ewe Hoe