Ingegerd Johansson

• Umeå University

Molecular characterization of the oral microbiome is a crucial first step in experiments which aim to understand the complex dynamics of the oral microbiome or the interplay with host health and disease. Third-generation Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) offers advanced long-read sequencing capabilities, which hold promise for improved molecular cha...

Objectives The objectives were to: (i) assess the accuracy of dental data for adults obtained from the Swedish Quality Register on Caries and Periodontitis (SKaPa); (ii) explore whether Latent Class Analysis (LCA) can identify groups of people based on caries data; and (iii) characterise the dental, medical and behavioural characteristics of people...

Background Dietary habits strongly influence health, with poor diets contributing to numerous deaths annually. Addressing this requires improved dietary habits and consistent monitoring thereof. In northern Sweden, a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) has been used for decades, but trends show that its ability to accurately measure intake...

Caries is a partially heritable disease, raising the possibility that a polygenic score (PS, a summary of an individual’s genetic propensity for disease) might be a useful tool for risk assessment. To date, PS for some diseases have shown clinical utility, although no PS for caries has been evaluated. The objective of the study was to test whether...

Eight pediatric oral nutritional supplements (ONSs) and 0.5% fat bovine milk were examined in vitro regarding their effect on the adhesion of three caries-related bacteria, Streptococcus mutans (strain CCUG 11877T), Lactobacillus gasseri (strain CCUG 31451), and Scardovia wiggsiae (strain CCUG 58090), to saliva-coated hydroxyapatite, as well as the...

Background Low-quality, non-diverse diet is a main risk factor for premature death. Accurate measurement of habitual diet is challenging and there is a need for validated objective methods. Blood metabolite patterns reflect direct or enzymatically diet-induced metabolites. Here, we aimed to evaluate associations between blood metabolite patterns an...

Dicarbonyl compounds are highly reactive precursors of Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs), produced endogenously, present in certain foods, and formed during food processing. AGEs contribute to development of adverse metabolic outcomes but health effects of dietary dicarbonyls are largely unexplored. We investigated associations between three d...

Prolonged use of antibacterial mouthwash is linked to an increased risk of systemic disease. We aimed to investigate if disturbing the oral microbiota would impact the lower gut microbiome with functional effects in diet-induced obesity. Mice were exposed to oral chlorhexidine and fed a Western diet (WD). Food intake and weight gain were monitored,...

Background and Objectives: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) has become a major global issue in the past several decades with a rapidly increasing incidence largely attributable to sedentary lifestyles and westernized diets. Previous research has shown conflicting evidence between dietary choline and the risk of T2D. The present study aimed to investigate asso...

We investigated data-driven and hypothesis-driven dietary patterns and their association to plasma metabolite profiles and subsequent colorectal cancer (CRC) risk in 680 CRC cases and individually matched controls. Dietary patterns were identified from combined exploratory/confirmatory factor analysis. We assessed association to LC–MS metabolic pro...

Introduction: Dietary intake of (poly)phenols has been linked to reduced adiposity and body weight (BW) in several epidemiological studies. However, epidemiological evidence on (poly)phenol biomarkers, particularly plasma concentrations, is scarce. We aimed to investigate the associations between plasma (poly)phenols and prospective BW change in p...

Purpose Investigate the association between choline and betaine intake and all-cause mortality in a large Swedish cohort. Methods Women (52,246) and men (50,485) attending the Västerbotten Intervention Programme 1990–2016 were included. Cox proportional hazard regression models adjusted for energy intake, age, BMI, smoking, education, and physical...

The cover image is based on the Original Article Household, dietary, and clinical characteristics of childhood caries and overweight progression—A prospective cohort study by Mary Tavares et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/ipd.13093 . image

Prolonged use of antibacterial mouthwash is linked to increased risk of systemic disease. We aimed to investigate if disturbing the oral microbiota would impact the lower gut microbiome with functional effects in diet-induced obesity. Mice were exposed to oral chlorhexidine and fed a Western diet. Food intake and weight gain were monitored, and met...

Objective: To assess the associations between adherence to the Swedish dietary guidelines and all-cause mortality and thus assessing the index' ability to predict health outcomes, as well as levels of dietary greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs). Design: A longitudinal study 1990-2016 within the population-based cohort Västerbotten Intervention Prog...

Background: Childhood caries and obesity are complex chronic diseases with negative health outcomes. Aim: This study sought a risk profile for childhood caries and overweight. Design: Children were recruited into a longitudinal prospective cohort study. Caries and overweight characteristics were obtained at baseline, 6, 12 and 18 months. Seque...

Taste perception is a well-documented driving force in food selection, with variations in, e.g., taste receptor encoding and glucose transporter genes conferring differences in taste sensitivity and food intake. We explored the impact of maternal innate driving forces on sweet taste preference and intake and assessed whether their children differed...

Background The choline oxidation pathway and metabolites involved have been linked to diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. A healthy Nordic diet is a recently defined dietary pattern associated with decreased risk for these diseases. Our aim was to explore associations between adherence to a healthy Nordic diet and...

Glyceraldehyde‐derived advanced glycation end products (glycer‐AGEs) could contribute to colorectal cancer development and progression due to their pro‐oxidative and pro‐inflammatory properties. However, the association of glycer‐AGEs with mortality after colorectal cancer diagnosis has not been previously investigated. Circulating glycer‐AGEs were...

The current early childhood caries (ECC) case definition contains a substantial degree of clinical heterogeneity, and to address this, we sought to identify clinical subtypes of the disease. We used tooth surface-level dental caries experience from a discovery and 3 replication community-based cohorts of 3-to-5-year-old children (N=226,471). We ide...

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations among the intake of total polyphenols, polyphenol classes, and polyphenol subclasses and body weight change over 5 years. Methods: A total of 349,165 men and women aged 25 to 70 years were recruited in the Physical Activity, Nutrition, Alcohol, Cessation of Smoking, Eating Out of...

Polyphenols are bioactive compounds from plants with antioxidant properties that may have a protective role against body weight gain, with adipose tissue and systemic oxidative stress as potential targets. We aimed to investigate the dietary intake of individual polyphenols and their association with 5-year body weight change in a sub-cohort of the...

Background Nutritional quality, and health and climate impacts are important considerations in the design of sustainable diets. Objective To investigate the association between diets varying in nutrient density and climate impact and MI and stroke hazard ratios. Methods Dietary data of 41,194 women and 39,141 men (35–65 years) who participated in...

Objectives: To test whether postulated subtypes of early childhood caries (ECC) are predictive of subsequent caries experience in a population-based cohort of Swedish children. Methods: The study included children aged between 3 and 5 years at study entry with dental records available for at least 5 years of follow-up. Dental record data were re...

Background: We aimed to characterize breast milk microbiota and define associations with saliva and fecal microbiota and selected diseases in preschool children. Methods: In a longitudinal cohort study, the microbiotas from breast milk, mouth, and fecal samples were characterized by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Questionnaires and medical records pr...

Genetic risk factors play important roles in the etiology of oral, dental, and craniofacial diseases. Identifying the relevant risk loci and understanding their molecular biology could highlight new prevention and management avenues. Our current understanding of oral health genomics suggests that dental caries and periodontitis are polygenic diseas...

Microbiota has been associated with autoimmune diseases, with nasal Staphylococcus aureus being implicated in the pathogenesis of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody–associated vasculitis (AAV). Little is known about the role of oral microbiota in AAV. In this study, levels of IgG antibodies to 53 oral bacterial species/subspecies were screened us...

People appear to vary in their susceptibility to lifestyle risk factors for cardiometabolic disease; determining a priori who is most sensitive may help optimize the timing, design, and delivery of preventative interventions. We aimed to ascertain a person’s degree of resilience or sensitivity to adverse lifestyle exposures and determine whether th...

Objectives To assess 1) the association between adherence to the Swedish dietary guidelines and all-cause mortality, and 2) the difference in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) from diets of participants with higher and lower adherence to the Swedish dietary guidelines. Methods Dietary data from the Swedish population-based cohort Västerbotten Interv...

Assessing the causal effects of individual dietary macronutrients and cardiometabolic disease is challenging owing to the complexity to distinguish direct effects from those mediated or confounded by other factors. To estimate these effects, intake of protein, carbohydrate, sugar, fat, and its subtypes were obtained using food frequency data derive...

The present study assessed the temporal associations of ~ 300 lifestyle exposures with nine cardiometabolic traits to identify exposures/exposure groups that might inform lifestyle interventions for the reduction of cardiometabolic disease risk. The analyses were undertaken in a longitudinal sample comprising > 31,000 adults living in northern Swed...

Objectives The oral microbiota plays a significant role in oral health. The present study aims to characterize variations in the oral microbiota relative to the collection site, the dynamics of biofilm accumulation, and inherent inter-individual differences. Methods Whole stimulated saliva and tooth biofilm samples from the 16 defined tooth region...

Objectives: To test whether postulated subtypes of early childhood caries (ECC) are predictive of subsequent caries experience in a population-based cohort of Swedish children. Methods: The study included children aged between 3 and 5 years at study entry with dental records available for at least 5 years of follow-up. Dental record data were retri...

Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) may promote oxidative stress and inflammation and have been linked to multiple chronic diseases, including cancer. However, the association of AGEs with mortality after colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis has not been previously investigated. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate h...

Background There is controversy about associations between total dietary fatty acids, their classes (saturated fatty acids [SFAs], monounsaturated fatty acids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids), and risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Specifically, the relevance of food sources of SFAs to CHD associations is uncertain. Methods and Results We cond...

Plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) is a risk marker, and smoking is an established risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It is unclear if the effect of smoked tobacco on homocysteine is mediated by nicotine or other combustion products in smoked tobacco. Snus (moist smokeless tobacco) is high nicotine-containing tobacco, and little is known about t...

Background: Lifestyle exposures play a major role in the development of disease, yet people vary in their susceptibility. A critical step towards precision medicine is identifying individuals who are resilient or sensitive to the environment, and, assess whether the allocation to these predicted groups are more or less likely to develop cardiometab...

Background Food biodiversity, encompassing the variety of plants, animals, and other organisms consumed as food and drink, has intrinsic potential to underpin diverse, nutritious diets and improve Earth system resilience. Dietary species richness (DSR), which is recommended as a crosscutting measure of food biodiversity, has been positively associa...

Dietary advanced glycation end-products (dAGEs) have been hypothesized to be associated with a higher risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) by promoting inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and oxidative stress in the colonic epithelium. However, evidence from prospective cohort studies is scarce and inconclusive. We evaluated CRC risk associated with th...

Modifiable lifestyle interventions may influence dental disease by shifting the composition of the oral microbiota. This study aimed to test whether lifestyle traits are associated with oral microbiota composition and function. Swedish volunteers, aged 16 to 79 years, completed a lifestyle traits questionnaire including lifestyle characteristics an...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common autoimmune inflammatory disease, and single periodontitis-associated bacteria have been suggested in disease manifestation. Here, the oral microbiota was characterized in relation to the early onset of RA (eRA) taking periodontal status into consideration. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of saliva bact...

Background: Prior observational studies have reported that higher levels of vitamin D are associated with decreased caries risk in children. However, these studies are prone to bias and confounding so do not provide causal inference. Genetic variants associated with a risk factor of interest can be used as proxies, in a Mendelian randomization (MR)...

Objectives Assess the effects of diets varying in nutrient density and climate impact on risk of myocardial infarction (MI). Methods Dietary data from 39 927 women and 37 390 men 35–65 years in the population-based prospective study Västerbotten Intervention Programme (Sweden) between the years 1990–2016 were used to characterize dietary quality a...

Background & aims: Evidence regarding the association of dietary exposures with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk is not consistent with a few exceptions. Therefore, we conducted a diet-wide association study (DWAS) in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) to evaluate the associations between several dietary exposures...

Excessive sucrose consumption is associated with numerous health problems, including dental caries, and is considered to play a critical role in shaping the human microbiota. Here, we aimed to confirm the association between sucrose exposure and oral microbiota profile, develop a short food-based index capturing variation among sucrose consumers an...

Background: Diets combining adequate nutritional quality and low climate impact are highly needed for human and planet health. Objectives: We aimed to 1) evaluate nutrient density indexes' ability to predict mortality, and 2) assess the effects of diets varying in nutrient density and climate impact on total mortality. Methods: Dietary data fr...

Background Vitamin B6 insufficiency has been linked to increased risk of cancer and other chronic diseases. The circulating concentration of pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP) is a commonly used measure of vitamin B6 status. Ratios of substrates indicating PLP coenzymatic function and metabolism may be useful complementary measures to further explore the...

The present study aims to assess the over-time association of ∼300 lifestyle exposures with nine cardiometabolic traits with the ultimate aim of identifying exposures/exposure groups that could inform lifestyle interventions aiming at controlling cardiometabolic diseases. The analyses were undertaken in a longitudinal sample comprising >31000 adult...

Aim To identify whether periodontal traits derived from electronic dental records are biologically informative and heritable. Materials and methods The study included 11,974 adult twins (aged 30‐92 years) in the Swedish Twin Registry. Periodontal records from dental examinations were retrieved from a national register and used to derive continuous...

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widespread persistent environmental pollutants. There is evidence that PFAS induce metabolic perturbations in humans, but underlying mechanisms are still unknown. In this exploratory study, we investigated PFAS-related plasma metabolites for their associations with type 2 diabetes (T2D) to gain potential mechani...

Background: Prior observational studies have reported that higher levels of vitamin D are associated with decreased caries risk in children. However, these studies are prone to bias and confounding so do not provide causal inference. Genetic variants associated with a risk factor of interest can be used as proxies, in a Mendelian randomization (MR)...

Corynebacterium matruchotii may be key in tooth biofilm formation, but information about demographics, bacterial partners, and binding ligands is limited. The aims of this study were to explore C. matruchotii’s demography by age and colonization site (plaque and saliva), in vitro bacterial–bacterial interactions in coaggregation and coadhesion assa...

Background: Overexpression of the receptor for advanced glycation end-product (RAGE) has been associated with chronic inflammation, which in turn has been associated with increased colorectal cancer risk. Soluble RAGE (sRAGE) competes with RAGE to bind its ligands, thus potentially preventing RAGE-induced inflammation. Methods: To investigate wh...

Purpose Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) can be formed in foods by the reaction of reducing sugars with proteins, and have been shown to induce insulin resistance and obesity in experimental studies. We examined the association between dietary AGEs intake and changes in body weight in adults over an average of 5 years of follow-up. Methods A...

Purpose The evidence from the literature regarding the association of dietary factors and risk of prostate cancer is inconclusive. Methods A nutrient-wide association study was conducted to systematically and comprehensively evaluate the associations between 92 foods or nutrients and risk of prostate cancer in the European Prospective Investigatio...

Hypothesis-free Mendelian randomization studies provide a way to assess the causal relevance of a trait across the human phenome but can be limited by statistical power, sample overlap or complicated by horizontal pleiotropy. The recently described latent causal variable (LCV) approach provides an alternative method for causal inference which might...

This study aimed to compare calculated nutrient intakes from two different food composition databases using data from the European prospective investigation into cancer and nutrition (EPIC) cohort. Dietary intake data of the EPIC cohort was recently matched to 150 food components from the U.S. nutrient database (USNDB). Twenty-eight of these nutrie...

Background: A diet comprising low fiber intake, high consumption of red meat, and alcohol drinking, are all established risk factors for colorectal cancer (CRC). Identifying metabolic fingerprints associated with data-driven dietary patterns may provide insight into potential mechanisms linking diet and risk of CRC. Objective: The aim of this study...

Maintaining a symbiotic oral microbiota is essential for oral and dental health, and host genetic factors may affect the composition or function of the oral microbiota through a range of possible mechanisms, including immune pathways. The study included 836 Swedish twins divided into separate groups of adolescents (n = 418) and unrelated adults (n...

Bacteria colonizing the mouth induce an adaptive immune response with the systemic and local presence of species or strain-specific immunoglobulins. Few studies have addressed global antibody patterns for oral bacteria or potential population time trends. We assessed these aspects in relation to a panel of oral bacteria. Using multiplex immunoblott...

Understanding oral microbiota programming attracts increasing interest due to its importance for oral health and potential associations with systemic diseases. Here the oral microbiota was longitudinally characterized in children from 2 days (n = 206) to 5 years of age and in young adults (n = 175) by sequencing of the v3-v4 region of the 16S rRNA...

Introduction The study of the environmental impact of dietary patterns in relation to their nutrition quality and health impact is of recent development and great interest for both nutrition and environmental scientists. Preliminary research has been conducted on the potential application of nutrition and health indexes as reference units (i.e. fun...

Despite the growing evidence supporting legume consumption as part of healthy and sustainable diet, little information is known on legume intake in the Swedish population. The aim of the present study was to describe legume consumers in Sweden, their nutrient intake and study the association with biomarkers of nutritional status using food consumpt...

Background Etiology and pathogenesis of ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) is multifactorial and understanding of the processes leading from a healthy immune system to autoimmunity and on to debut of symptoms in AAV is rudimentary. Objectives To identify inflammatory proteins related to the early processes preceding AAV development, and potential no...

Background Several studies have suggested a link between the two chronic inflammatory diseases, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and periodontitis (PD) [1]. The diseases share similar environmental and genetic risks factors, e.g., smoking [2] and the HLA-DRB1 alleles [3]. Several serum markers used in the diagnosis of RA have also been found to be elevate...

Background: Legumes are nutrient-dense foods and can be an environmentally sustainable alternative to meat consumption. Data on legume intake are scarce and data on legume consumption in Sweden are lacking. This study investigated dietary intake and dietary patterns, together with iron, vitamin D, and folate status, in relation to legume consumpti...

Oral microbiota ecology is influenced by environmental and host conditions, but few studies have evaluated associations between untargeted measures of the entire oral microbiome and potentially relevant environmental and host factors. This study aimed to identify salivary microbiota cluster groups using hierarchical cluster analyses (Wards method)...

Background: Several dietary factors have been reported to be associated with risk of breast cancer, but to date, unequivocal evidence only exists for alcohol consumption. We sought to systematically assess the association between intake of 92 foods and nutrients and breast cancer risk using a nutrient-wide association study. Methods: Using data...

The objective was to examine 10-year changes in dietary carbon footprint relative to individual characteristics and food intake in the unique longitudinal Västerbotten Intervention Programme, Sweden. Here, 14 591 women and 13 347 men had been followed over time. Food intake was assessed via multiple two study visits 1996–2016, using a 64-item food...

Previous studies report that dental caries is partially heritable, but there is uncertainty in the magnitude of genetic effects and little understanding of how genetic factors might influence caries progression or caries subtypes. This study aimed to estimate the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of different...

Background: Habitual coffee intake has been associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D), but few studies used biomarkers to reflect intake and investigated different coffee brews, that is boiled and filtered, separately. Objectives: To identify plasma metabolites associated with boiled or filtered coffee intake and to examin...

Background Hypothesis-free Mendelian randomization studies provide a way to assess the causal relevance of a trait across the human phenome but can be limited by statistical power or complicated by horizontal pleiotropy. The recently described latent causal variable (LCV) approach provides an alternative method for causal inference which might be u...

Importance Dietary fiber (the main source of prebiotics) and yogurt (a probiotic food) confer various health benefits via modulating the gut microbiota and metabolic pathways. However, their associations with lung cancer risk have not been well investigated. Objective To evaluate the individual and joint associations of dietary fiber and yogurt co...

Objective The objective of this study was to examine climate impact from diet across background and sociodemographic characteristics in a population-based cohort in northern Sweden. Design A cross-sectional study within the Västerbotten Intervention Programme. Dietary data from a 64-item food frequency questionnaire collected during 1996–2016 were...

Background: Food intake patterns provide a summary of dietary intake. Few studies have examined trends in food intake patterns over time in large, population-based studies. We examined food intake patterns and related sociodemographic and individual characteristics in the large Northern Sweden Diet Database during the two time windows 2000-2007 an...

The role of dairy products in cancer is unclear. We assessed consumption of fermented milk, non-fermented milk, cheese, and butter, estimated from semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaires, in relation to prospective risk of breast, prostate, colorectal, smoking-, and obesity-related cancers in 101,235 subjects, including 12,552 cancer cases,...

Taste and diet preferences are complex and influenced by both environmental and host traits while affecting both food selection and associated health outcomes. The present study genotyped 94 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in previously reported taste and food intake related genes and assessed associations with taste threshold (TT) and prefe...

Dental caries and periodontitis account for a vast burden of morbidity and healthcare spending, yet their genetic basis remains largely uncharacterized. Here, we identify self-reported dental disease proxies which have similar underlying genetic contributions to clinical disease measures and then combine these in a genome-wide association study met...

Background: There is conflicting evidence regarding the association between fish intake and type 2 diabetes (T2D) incidence, possibly owing to measurement errors in self-reported intake and coexposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) present in fish. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify plasma metabolites associated with fish...