News archive

The virtual SPARKS conference held on 2-3 December will gather a network of global leaders in public policy and research to facilitate the exchange of knowledge on social protection and health. Knut Lönnroth is the founder of the SPARKS Network and Professor of Social Medicine.

Thirteen researchers connected to Karolinska Institutet are on the 2020 list of highly cited researchers presented by Clarivate, the company behind Web of Science.

Active lifestyle choices such as eating vegetables, exercising and quitting smoking can reduce the risk of chronic kidney disease, a new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Griffith University in Australia, reports. The study is published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

People with dementia disease receiving home care feel that they are not treated with the same degree of respect and dignity as people who do not have dementia and receive the same service. That is according to a study by researchers at Mälardalen University (MDH), Karolinska Institutet and Dalarna University, published in The Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA).

Knowledge of how human fat tissue is affected by age has long been defined by numerous mouse-based studies. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now, for the first time, been able to conduct a prospective study on humans that provides novel insights into how our fat cells reduce lipid metabolism with age. The study is published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Migrants from Africa and the Middle East and their children are more likely to be placed under compulsory care than the Swedish-born population when admitted to hospital for psychosis for the first time. That is according to a large, nationwide study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and University College London in the U.K., published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Patricia Eustachio Colombo, doctoral student with the Department of Global Public Health at KI, is first author of the cross-sectional study based on data from the Swedish national dietary survey “Riksmaten ungdom” published in Public Health Nutrition.

Children of parents suffering from mental illness have a higher risk of injuries than other children, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal BMJ. The risk is elevated up to 17 years of age and peaks during the first year of life. The findings highlight the need for parents with mental illness to receive extra support around child injury prevention measures as well as early treatment of mental morbidity among expecting parents.

An extensive workshop has been held to further the vision of creating a Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Health. Karolinska Institutet is driving the development together with Makerere University in Uganda, with focus on non-communicable diseases and other high burden diseases.

Researchers worldwide are trying to develop a vaccine and antiviral treatments against the new corona virus spreading in China. At Karolinska Institutet, virus researchers Ali Mirazimi and Matti Sällberg are working to develop a prototype vaccine against the virus. But vaccine development takes time, and it will likely take at least six to nine months before an application for clinical studies can be filed and another two to three years before a vaccine could be ready for the public.

Babies born with low birth weights are more likely to have poor cardiorespiratory fitness later in life than their normal-weight peers. That is according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal JAHA. The findings underscore the importance of prevention strategies to reduce low birth weights even among those carried to at term delivery.

When Nobel prize winner Michael Kremer initially looked at the data of his now famous 1990s Kenya school study, he felt shocked and disappointed. The data showed that more textbooks did nothing to improve educational outcomes, contrary to what most researchers believed. But rather than succumbing to disillusionment, Kremer dug deeper into Kenya’s schooling system to uncover what measures truly did make an impact and found his answer: targeted help for weak students.

Refugees and other migrants who move to Sweden are initially less likely to be diagnosed with alcohol or drug addiction than the native population but over time their rates of substance abuse begin to mirror that of the Swedish born population. That is according to a new study by researchers at UCL in the U.K. and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

Children born to women who underwent gastric bypass surgery before becoming pregnant had a lower risk of major birth defects than children born to women who had severe obesity at the start of their pregnancy. That’s according to a matched cohort study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Örebro University published in the scientific journal JAMA. The findings indicate that weight-loss and improved blood sugar control could reduce the risk of major birth defects.

Refugees who fled to Sweden were no more likely to die by suicide than migrants who moved to the country on their own terms, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and UCL in the U.K. However, the risk of suicide for both groups increased the longer they stayed in Sweden and was after 20 years almost on par with that of the native population. The study is published in The British Journal of Psychiatry.

Two research projects at Karolinska Institutet have been awarded synergy grants from the European Research Council (ERC). In total, the researchers and their international partners were awarded about EUR 19 million (SEK 209 million) over a six-year period for studies that aim to widen our understanding of disease-causing fat cells and unlock new cancer treatments.

People with low scores on intelligence tests in adolescence run a higher risk of suicide and suicide attempt later in life. That is according to a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden that followed almost 50,000 Swedish men from the 1970s until recently. The study is published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Correction: The article “Reduction in Mental Health Treatment Utilization Among Transgender Individuals After Gender-Affirming Surgeries: A Total Population Study,” published in The American Journal of Psychiatry on Oct. 4, 2019, has been corrected following a review of the statistical methodology and some of its conclusions.

The timing of anemia—a common condition in late pregnancy—can make a big difference for the developing fetus, according to research at Karolinska Institutet published in JAMA Psychiatry. The researchers found a link between early anemia and increased risk of autism, ADHD and intellectual disability in the child. Anemia discovered toward the end of pregnancy did not have the same correlation. The findings underscore the importance of early screening for iron status and nutritional counselling.

Stanford Medicine X has launched a new self-paced online course through Stanford online with faculty from Stanford University.

Many people struggle to keep their weight in check as they get older. Now new research at Karolinska Institutet has uncovered why that is: Lipid turnover in the fat tissue decreases during ageing and makes it easier to gain weight, even if we don’t eat more or exercise less than before. The study is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

PhD student Sara Causevic and researcher Helena Nordenstedt at the Department of Public Health Sciences and student Wiebke Mohr at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics started the Women in Global Health Sweden Chapter as a response to the Call to Action on Gender Equality.

Hello, Galit Andersson, who recently defended a doctoral thesis at the Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet. For your thesis you conducted large surveys of transgender people and people living with HIV in Sweden to assay their quality of life.

The research project is led by Ritva Rissanen, postdoc at the Department of Public Health Sciences, and will investigate sick leave patterns when returning to work after a work-related injury, among young adults.

Young people with lower school grades than their peers run a higher risk of mental ill-health and attempted suicide. In a new study published in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, researchers from Karolinska Institutet show that this risk persists into middle age.