Characteristics of reporting diabetes mellitus research results in Japanese newspapers.

This study aims to characterize the coverage of research on diabetes mellitus by Japanese newspapers. Newspaper articles with the key words diabetes mellitus, diabetes disease, or blood sugar in the headline were selected from four major Japanese newspapers for the period 1988-2007 using the ELNET database and coded by two researchers. Of 152 newspaper articles examined, 92 (60.5%) were based on journal articles, and published in English. The remaining 60 (39.5 %) were based on academic meetings, of which 51 (85.0%) were conducted in Japan. Seventy-two articles covered non-human studies (47.4%), but only 26 used a word such as animal, mouse, or cell in the headline to describe the study subjects. Publications in countries where the native language is not English may have language and geographical barriers that affect the reporting of research results.