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Autumn 2026 7 Scanning later issues of Headlines , some themes emerged around food and nutrition. Can health messaging be a little faddish? There's evidence for all sorts of foods to avoid or to eat. My advice is to have a healthy diet. Salmon and other fish are obviously good. If people want to have a steak, there's no reason why you can't have one – but it probably wouldn't be good for your health to have a steak every night. So, my advice is to just have a healthy diet. Back in 1990, life expectancy was much shorter. People were dying from heart attacks and strokes. So, I guess people weren't so worried about health messaging. There's so much contradictory stuff – I think it's just a matter of being sensible. This bold prediction was in Headlines , July, 1993: “Within a decade, neurological researchers expect to identify the gene underlying most diseases and disorders of the brain.” Did that happen? I think that's probably largely true. The abnormal gene has been found in a lot of conditions that we knew were hereditary. That’s been a major breakthrough in terms of diagnosis, but in many genetic conditions this is yet to be translated into useful therapy. Finally – what are your hopes for the future? That is a big question. If you look back to 1990, you wouldn't have expected to be able to treat somebody who's come to hospital paralysed down one side, unable to speak, and return them to normal. So there's no reason to think that something can’t be done to help people with neurodegenerative diseases. I guess the big issue is we don’t really have a good handle on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and motor neuron disease in terms of treatment or prevention. And there's been relatively little progress for some types of brain tumour, in terms of effective treatment. The big hope is that there'll be progress in identifying people at risk of neurological disease, preventing it, and slowing progress if it does develop. I also hope there’ll be further improvement in treatment for things like stroke and epilepsy. But if we can prevent neurological diseases, that is the way to go. Neil shares revealing insights and fascinating answers to many more questions in an engaging interview – a special recording to mark 150 issues of Headlines. Make a cuppa, scan this QR code and settle down to listen, or go to https://bit.ly/brilliant-neurologist-nz Neil has witnessed significant advances in his time as a neurologist. He is pictured here with our Head of Research Dr Sarah Schonberger.