My interest and research focus involves metabolic diseases, nutrition, and dietary interventions.
I am currently working on data from a randomized controlled feeding trial together with my co-worker Anna Sjödin. We are interested in a low carb – high fat (LCHF) diet that is quite popular in Sweden. We intend to investigate diet specific biomarkers (small molecules involved in metabolism) in the blood, as well as blood lipids, body composition, performance, cognition and sweet cravings. In addition, we intend to qualitatively study the experience of following two different dietary regimes. The study is expected to reveal whether LCHF is a healthy or unhealthy diet in the short term. We also expect that data from this study will be a helpful tool to measure diet adherence in future long-term studies.
Most of my previous research activities have focused on adipose tissue as an endocrine organ and the consequences of adipose tissue dysfunction for metabolic disease. During my PhD period I developed an expertise in fat cell metabolism. My doctoral thesis focused on cellular mechanisms for insulin resistance that may be of relevance for type 2 diabetes. During my post doc period I studied tissue-specific cortisol metabolism in detail and its role in obesity and metabolic dysregulation. Later on, as an independent researcher, I studied adipose tissue inflammation and obesity-related disease (immune response and metabolic regulation are highly integrated). Lately, I have been developing a more nutrition-oriented research profile at the Department of Food, Nutrition and Culinary Science.