Miia Kivipelto appointed Wallenberg Clinical Scholar 2016

Miia Kivipelto has been appointed, as one of five, Wallenberg Clinical Scholars 2016. The individual funding of SEK 15 million provides the scholars with the opportunity to deepen their research and disseminate their results in healthcare.

“I'm so happy, it feels incredible! This type of extensive funding is of great importance to our possibilities to engage in long-term clinical research, leading to relevant results to implement in healthcare and thus contribute to improvement of human health. It is also a great honor to be appointed a Wallenberg Clinical Scholar, I am very proud and happy,” says Miia Kivipelto, Professor at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (NVS), Karolinska Institutet.

Her research has made significant contributions to insights into how the development of dementia can be slowed down through the use of lifestyle measures. As a Wallenberg Clinical Scholar she will build a platform for clinical trials and continue to investigate treatments that can help people with dementia to keep their memories longer.

Globally, the frequency of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is rapidly increasing. In recent decades, a great deal of resources have been put in to developing pharmaceuticals that can prevent the progress of the disease, but this has turned out to be easier said than done. As yet there is no drugs that can prevent the development of dementia.

However, Miia Kivipelto has shown that it is possible to decrease memory problems with a number of measures: changed diet, physical training, cognitive training and normalising blood pressure and blood lipids.

As a Wallenberg Clinical Scholar, Miia Kivipelto will continue to investigate how best to prevent the disease. Among other things, she will develop a platform for high-quality clinical studies of dementia. Her work also includes developing models for assessing a person’s risk of dementia, investigating which mechanisms drive the disease and how these can be counteracted through a range of measures.