Associate professor Jonas F. Ludvigsson

Description of research

Coeliac disease. In the 1990s, Sweden experienced a peak in the incidence of coeliac disease (gluten intolerance). Around this time, I was still in medical school and it struck me that this had to be a disease that was not only due to genetic factors (as we had largely been told) but must also due to environmental factors. Another reason for my interest in coeliac disease was that it shared many of the clinical features of infectious diarrhea. I travelled widely in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the 1990s and often practised in hospitals where diarrhea was a common cause of death in children.

Coeliac disease is an immune-mediated disorder triggered by the gluten exposure (found in wheat, barley and rye). It shares many immunological features with type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and thyroid disease. It occurs in about 1% of all individuals in the Western world and is thereby one of the most common chronic diseases in childhood. Children with coeliac disease also make up a majority of my outpatients. Eight months per year, I work clinically in the department of paediatrics at Örebro University Hospital.

I am currently coordinating a research group with an interest in complications of coeliac disease or bowel inflammation. We have identified patients with coeliac disease or non-specific inflammation through biopsy reports from 28 pathology departments in Sweden. These data are then linked with the national population-based registers in Sweden. We will then able to study the future risk of various diseases in individuals with coeliac disease.

I am also involved in the so called ABIS study (All children in Southeast Sweden). In this study, some 17,000 children are followed prospectively with regards to factors that might influence the risk of allergy and immunologic disorders such as type 1 diabetes and coeliac disease.

Finally I have an interest in medical research methodology; and in 2002 I published a book about research methodology ("Att börja forska inom medicin och vårdvetenskap", Studentlitteratur).

Financing

• Research position at the Swedish Society of Medicine 2010-12
• Swedish Society for Coeliacs
• Örebro County Council
• Swedish Research Council

Five selected publications

Further information

Qualifications Portfolio/CV

• Qualifications Portfolio/CV
• Rising star in European Gastroenterology 2010

Swedish Society for Coeliacs

In the year 2008 Jonas Ludvigsson recorded a number of podcasts about celiac disease. These podcasts are directed towards patients with celiac disease and their families. The audio files (only available in Swedish) can be donwloaded at the web site of the Swedish Society for Coeliacs:

• Swedish Society for Coeliacs
• ABIS-studien
• Att börja forska inom medicin och vårdvetenskap
• Barnmedicin i ett nötskal

PhD students

Main supervisor:

Ola Olén. Thesis Defence: 12th September 2008

Peter Elfström. Thesis Defence: 27 februari 2009.

Internetbased presentations

Below are the URLs to 13 internetbased presentations on clinical epidemiology. These presentations were based on the book Clinical Epidemiology by Fletcher & Fletcher, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005.

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Abnormality
• 3. Diagnosis
• 4. Frequency
• 5. Risk: Looking forward
• 6. Risk: Looking backward
• 7. Prognosis
• 8. Treatment
• 9. Prevention
• 10. Chance
• 11. Cause
• 12. Meta-analysis
• 13. Knowledge management