Research group We study associations between dietary patterns and health in the North, with a specific interest in data on traditional food collected in Arctic parts of Sweden, that is in Norrbotten and Västerbotten. Four of the global sustainable development goals (SDG) have a direct link to food.
Our research is mainly based on data collected in collaboration between health authorities and researchers in Arctic Sweden since the mid-1980s, more specifically the Västerbotten Intervention Programme and the MONICA project, together named the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study (NSHDS) cohort. The NSHDS includes data on diet, lifestyle and health factors from more than 100,000 unique individuals. By aligning the diet database with data from national health registers, we investigate how dietary habits and dietary patterns in the north co-vary with the risk of being diseased in or dying from non-communicable public diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Data from Arctic Sweden is also included in the he European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition European collaboration for cancer research (the EPIC project). In these collaborations, researchers from Umeå University have an important role in interpreting results from an Arctic perspective, even though we do not have leading roles in all publications.
We also participate in Arctic collaborations on diet and health among majority populations and Indigenous peoples, such as the AMAP project. The Sami are the only Indigenous people of Europe. Twenty years ago, Sami had a lower risk of cancer than non-Sami and the same life expectancy as other Scandinavians. Traditional Sami food items that may have an impact on health includes brewed coffee, wild berries, fish and reindeer meat. In addition to the nutrition epidemiological perspective, traditional food is also important to examine from a cultural, self-sufficiency and crisis preparedness perspective.
