Overall aim:
Nutritional epidemiology uses epidemiological methods to examine associations between diet and disease. Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in the world, and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing worldwide.
We use large population studies, mainly the Malmö Diet and Cancer cohort, which was established in the 90s and consists of 28,098 individuals. In the research group, we investigate whether dietary composition influences the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer, and whether genetic factors influence the observed relationships. Clarifying the importance of dietary habits is of great significance for public health because eating habits, in contrast to many other factors, can change during the life cycle.
Our overall aim is to create and diffuse knowledge within the human nutrition field so that we achieve a healthier society
Ongoing projects:
- Role of sugar consumption for development of cardiometabolic risk
- Role of genetic variation in the salivary amylase gene (AMY1) and starch intake on cardiometabolic risk
- Dairy products and cardiovascular disease
We are also involved in several international collaborations:
- NCD Risk Factor Collaboration
- CHARGE (Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology) Genetic and Nutrition cohort collaboration
- EPIC (European Prospective into Cancer and Nutrition) is a large European cohort where Malmö Diet and Cancer study is one of 23 cohorts. EPIC has been very important for the detection of risk factors for different types of cancer.
- STROBE-nut guidelines, an extension of the STROBE guidelines for reporting of nutritional epidemiology. These STROBE-nut guidelines have been widely distributed within the nutrition research community and are used in the author guidelines for several journals to increase the quality of reporting.