GRANT. Lena Carlsson’s group will receive just over 1.8 million dollars from the American NIH, in collaboration with a group at the Karolinska Institute (KI). Lena Carlsson is a professor of clinical metabolic research and is head of the SOS study, which is one of the world’s largest studies on obesity treatment.
What does this grant mean to you and your group?
It means a great deal to us to receive this grant, especially as a mark of quality for what we have done and the research program we plan to implement. We find it very encouraging that despite our not having any American joint applicants, we were able to receive this grant. It shows that Swedish research is highly competitive in the area of obesity. The grant also gives us a significantly better economy for implementing sub-studies, which we otherwise could not afford, as well as enabling us to establish cooperation with a group at the Karolinska Institute.
What is the grant for – what will you do in your project?
Bariatric surgery is an established treatment method for morbid obesity. There is relatively good knowledge on what happens in the short-term after a bariatric operation, but sometimes we forget that the effects of the treatment will affect the patient for the rest of their lives. Our research intends to study both the positive and negative effects over a very long period of time. We intend to determine if bariatric surgery affects longevity and the development of different disease in patients that we have followed for over 20 years, as well as examine the same outcomes in a newer and larger material, but with a shorter follow-up period. Our hypothesis is that there are a number of positive effects on, for example, longevity, diabetes complications and different heart diseases. But we also suspect that there can be negative effects, such as increased risk of suicide and fractures. We also intend to study the effects of bariatric surgery on patient groups that have not previously been studied, for example the elderly and those with a lower BMI.
What do you find to be most exciting in this project?
The most exciting thing will be to try to find markers for which patients that will have the most (and least) benefit from bariatric surgery. It is a common misconception that patients who have the highest body mass index should be prioritized, but it is not certain that these are the patients we can best help. Instead, we hope to be able to identify groups where the risk of serious illness is responsive to bariatric surgery.
You will receive the grant for a collaboration with Martin Neovius at KI, what role does he have in the project?
This is a long-term collaboration where our research groups examine different outcomes with the help of two cohorts that complement each other. One cohort is the Swedish Obese Subjects (SOS) study with 4,047 patients and a very long follow-up time that is lead by my research group. The other is a new cohort with a shorter follow-up time that Martin has created by matching over 30,000 patients from a quality register for bariatric surgery, SOReg, with close to 35,000 individuals that undergo non-surgical obesity treatment under Itrim’s program. Included in Martin’s groupings are several researcher bariatric surgeons from SOReg and MBA’s, which is of great importance for studies of health economic issues and cost efficacy in different patient groups.
There is stiff competition for funding from NIH – especially for foreigners. What do you think was the reason your application was accepted?
It was probably a combination of the issues that we will tackle, our unique patient cohort and that we previously have published in leading medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA.
