With its debilitating rates of chronic ill-health, high incidence of cancer and curtailed life expectancy, Glasgow has long been regarded as Europe's "sick man". Consistently - and rightly - poverty has been diagnosed as being the root cause of the grave malaise afflicting the most disadvantaged citizens in Scotland's most ailing city. The challenging task of closing the city's inequality gap through sustainable employment, better housing and greater educational attainment has been taken up by those in power for decades. Though steps have been made in the right direction, overall success, regretfully, remains, at best, a "work in progress".

With its debilitating rates of chronic ill-health, high incidence of cancer and curtailed life expectancy, Glasgow has long been regarded as Europe's "sick man". Consistently - and rightly - poverty has been diagnosed as being the root cause of the grave malaise afflicting the most disadvantaged citizens in Scotland's most ailing city. The challenging task of closing the city's inequality gap through sustainable employment, better housing and greater educational attainment has been taken up by those in power for decades. Though steps have been made in the right direction, overall success, regretfully, remains, at best, a "work in progress".

Yet, while tackling the ills inherently linked with poverty must remain the greatest goal, new challenges to the conventional view of "sick Glasgow" have emerged. Today's newly-published study, jointly produced by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the Medical Research Council, presents compelling evidence that a significant number of Glasgow's core health problems run deeper and wider than the usual demarcations of deprivation. The research team findings suggest that certain issues, such as excess alcohol consumption, less-than-adequate diet and higher incidence of deaths from chronic liver disease, could simply be explained away by poverty. The unavoidable conclusion, therefore, must be that the city suffers from greater and deeper health issues than had ever been imagined.

Taken at its most literal, this research suggests that some of Glasgow's most debilitating health issues are no respecter of social class, postcode or disposable income; that the diagnosis and treatment of the "sick man" defies traditional logic. It is clear, therefore, that innovative routes must be explored in pursuit of a cure.

In tackling poor diet, a greater emphasis on helping young people acquire greater culinary and budgetary skills would provide better building blocks for the next generation of parents. In a wider sense, improving the clarity and consistency of food labelling would certainly help the spread of the good nutrition message not just to Glasgow but to the country at large. The traffic-light system (which indicates whether high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt are present in foodstuffs) has been adopted by some supermarkets and food manufacturers. Yet, almost every firm's package design is different, making the delivery of this message less clear than it could be. Worse still, many of the unhealthiest dishes - fast foods such as pizzas, burgers and sandwiches - come with little guidance to help consumers understand their relative nutritional values.

The far greater challenge, however, lies not on Glasgow's plate but in its glass. Alcohol, once again, is highlighted, not as social lubricant but as one of Scottish society's greatest unsolved problems. It is just three days since, in the wake of Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's announcement of his intention to eradicate drunkenness as a mitigating factor in criminal cases, The Herald concluded that only a fundamental change of attitude towards alcohol would effect lasting change.

Again, as in the assault on poor diet, retailers have an important role to play as there is little doubt that the way in which alcohol is priced, marketed and sold makes a difference to the way in which it is consumed.

However, they are not alone, as licensing authorities, education, health chiefs and politicians must all accept their part in the challenge of repositioning alcohol as a restorative, rather than destructive, factor in the life of Europe's "sick man" who is still desperately in need of a cure.