Ethics and informed consent

A current research program is focused on investigation of metabolic abnormalities and inflammation in relation to chronic disease, primarily cardiovascular diseases, kidney disease, cancer, dementia, rheumatoid arthritis and psychiatric illness. This research program has been approved by the Regional Ethical committee at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 2010-07-28, Registration number 2010/1:7.

Due to the very large study population, 812,073 subjects, and that more than 15-25 years have passed since the baseline health examination, it has not been considered feasible for practical and economic reasons to reach out to all cohort members and ask individually about informed consent to participate in the research program. For these reasons, the Ethical committee did not require the study team to collect informed consent from all individuals. Furthermore, all linked information has been anonymized/de-identified by the National Board of Health and Welfare and by Statistics Sweden respectively before reaching Karolinska Institutet and the research team.