Research that revealed eating pizza can reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease — but only if made and eaten in Italy — has taken out the 2019 Ig Nobel prize for Medicine.

Italian epidemiologist Dr Silvano Gallus took home the 10 trillion-dollar prize (in effectively worthless Zimbabwe currency) for a study that showed people who eat pizza at least weekly have a 60% lower risk of oesophageal cancer than non-regular pizza-eaters.

Further, their risk of colon cancer was almost 30% lower and they were 40% less likely to have an acute MI, according to the research published more than a decade ago.

But pizza-lovers need to “hold the pepperoni” as the results were likely a general indicator of the value of a Mediterranean diet, according to Dr Gallus.