Ida Karlsson

I am Docent, Assistant professor, and leader of the research group Cardiometabolic epidemiology and aging. My main interest is combining genetic and longitudinal designs to understand complex aging-related traits. My primary research aim is to understand how obesity influences late-life health, by studying how differences among adiposity-related traits and why they have different associations with age-related diseases such as dementia, cardiovascular disease, and type-2 diabetes. I am also involved in several projects aiming to understand how different factors across the life course affect dementia risk, including genetic factors, lifestyle, and environmental exposures.

Adiposity and the risk of age-related disease
The project aims to leverage the heterogeneity of adiposity-related traits, to understand better how adiposity influences the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and dementia. My hypothesis is that specific adiposity-related traits have different effects on the risk of the age-related diseases, and that these differences are explained by differences in e.g. metabolic factors or accelerated aging. I study adiposity in general (e.g. BMI and body fat distribution), and specific adiposity-related traits: a) metabolically unhealthy vs healthy adiposity, b) environmentally vs genetically driven adiposity, and c) adiposity measured in midlife vs late-life. These adiposity-related traits are associated with substantially increased, vs only slightly increased or even decreased risk of age-related disease (compared to having normal weight), and by studying what differs between them, I aim to advance our understanding of both the heterogeneity of overweight and of how adiposity in general affects late-life health.

The Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium
I am part of the IGEMS consortium (PI at KI), which integrates data across twin studies of adult development and aging to address issues of gene-environment interplay in Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias (ADRD). Within IGEMS, I lead studies of cardiometabolic risk factors of ADRD and am the lead of the Statistical Methods work group and the Genotyping and Polygenic Scores work group. 

Course director:

• An introduction to genetic and molecular epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, from 2021 (PhD course, 1.5 credits)
• Statistical Methods, School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, 2020 (PhD course, 7.5 credits)

Lecturer:
Karolinska Institutet, from 2021:

• Lectures on genetic epidemiology, cognition, and dementia (bachelor and master level)
• Leader of seminars, group work, laboratory assignments in epidemiology and biostatistics

School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, 2018-2020:

• Lectures on statistical methods (doctoral level)
• Lectures on cognition and dementia (bachelor and master level)

Supervision/mentoring:

• Elsa Ojalehto, PhD student
• Emilija Romic (as co-supervisor), PhD student at Umeå University
• Manasa Shanta Näsholm (as co-supervisor), MSCA Postdoctoral researcher at KI, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society
• Martin Nakash, research assistant (amanuens)
• Otto-Emil Jutila (as co-supervisor), PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, Precision Medicine Doctoral Training Program
• Yuling Yu, Postdoctoral researcher 

Former students:

• Peggy Ler, PhD student at Karolinska Institutet, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, graduation November 2024. Thesis: Disentangling the body bass index, metabolic health and aging connection: weighty matters

• Anita Paul, master student from Stockholm University, Public health department, VT 2022
• Axel Ryding, medical degree student at Karolinska Institutet, HT 2023; , research assistant (amanuens), September 2024 - June 2025
• Elsa Ojalehto (as co-supervisor, now PhD student), master student from Stockholm University, Public health department, VT 2022
• Martin Nakash, medical degree student at Karolinska Institutet, VT 2024