Methods for diagnosing risk of miscarriage and/or premature birth, foetalabnormalities, cancer (e.g. prostate cancer) and inflammatory disease (e.g.rheumatoid arthritis) are disclosed which involve determining abnormal levelsof macrophage inhibitory cytokine-1 (MIC-1) in a body sample or, otherwise,determining the presence of a MIC-1 variant protein. Also disclosed aremethods for reducing the risk of miscarriage and/or premature birth inpregnant subjects, and methods for treatment of inflammatory disease and/orcancer.