Rasmus Wibæk

• Master of Science in Public Health
• University of Copenhagen

Background Malnutrition during pregnancy is associated with adverse birth outcomes, but the importance of maternal diet during pregnancy for neonatal body composition remains inconclusive. This study investigated the role of maternal diet during pregnancy for neonatal body composition in the Ethiopian iABC birth cohort. Methods The data stemmed fr...

Background Childhood is a period marked by dynamic growth. Evidence of the association between childhood linear growth and school achievement comes mostly from cross-sectional data. We assessed associations between birth length, childhood linear growth velocities, and stunting with school achievement. Methods Newborns were recruited into the Ethio...

Early childhood growth is associated with cognitive function. However, the independent associations of fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM) with cognitive function are not well understood. We investigated associations of FM and FFM at birth and 0-5 years accretion with cognitive function at 10 years. Healthy term newborns were enrolled in this coh...

Background Stress during pregnancy is detrimental to maternal health, pregnancy and birth outcomes and various preventive relaxation interventions have been developed. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of maternal mental health, pregnancy and birth outcomes. Method The protocol for this review...

Aims Suboptimal glycaemic control in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes is prevalent and associated with increased risk of diabetes‐related complications and mortality later in life. First, we aimed to identify distinct glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) trajectories in children and adolescents (2–19 years) with type 1 diabetes. Second, we exa...

(1) Background: Breastfeeding (BF) has been shown to lower the risk of overweight and cardiometabolic disease later in life. However, evidence from low-income settings remains sparse. We examined the associations of BF status at 6 months with anthropometry, body composition (BC), and cardiometabolic markers at 5 years in Ethiopian children. (2) Met...

Context: Children exposed to gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in utero are at high risk of developing overweight and obesity, but their postnatal growth trajectories and risk profiles remain unclear. Objective: We aimed to identify distinct body mass index (BMI) trajectories from birth to 10 years of age in children exposed to GDM and to expl...

Aims/hypothesis Low birthweight is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Most previous studies are based on cross-sectional prevalence data, not designed to study the timing of onset of type 2 diabetes in relation to birthweight. We aimed to examine associations of birthweight with age-specific incidence rate of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged to older...

Background: Though birth weight (BW) has been associated with later cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, the role of birth fat mass (BFM) and birth fat-free mass (BFFM) on cardiometabolic health is unclear. Objective: To examine associations of BW, BFM, and BFFM with later anthropometry, body composition, abdominal fat, and cardiometaboli...

Background: Maternal stress during pregnancy has been associated with adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes. Aiming to reduce maternal stress and to improve pregnancy and birth outcomes, different relaxation interventions have been tested during pregnancy. This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted on studies that have tested relaxation...

BACKGROUND Large language models have had a huge impact on natural language processing (NLP) in recent years. However, their application in epidemiological research is still limited to analysis of electronic health records and social media data. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate the potential beyond these domains, we aimed to develop prediction models base...

Background Large language models have had a huge impact on natural language processing (NLP) in recent years. However, their application in epidemiological research is still limited to the analysis of electronic health records and social media data. Objectives To demonstrate the potential of NLP beyond these domains, we aimed to develop prediction...

Background: Low birth weight, indictive of a poor fetal environment, is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D) . Most previous studies were based on cross sectional prevalence data and not designed to study the timing of onset of T2D in relation to birth weight (BW) . Furthermore, earlier studies have not adjusted for common genetic variation infl...

Background Malnutrition is considered an important contributing factor to child mortality, and the mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is regarded as one of the better anthropometric predictors of child mortality. We explored whether the decline in child mortality over recent decades could be explained by changes in children’s MUAC. Methods This pr...

Objectives: Poor glycemic control in type 1 diabetes increases the risk of chronic complications and it is essential to identify life periods and predictors associated with deteriorating HbA1c . The aim was to describe specific HbA1c trajectories in Danish children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes and study associations with clinical and socio...

Introduction People with psychiatric disorders have increased risk of premature death partly due to diabetes. This study aims to explore the quality of diabetes care, diabetes management, diabetes support and well-being of people with psychiatric disorders and diabetes. Research design and methods A total of 107 participants aged ≥18 years with di...

Background: People with diabetes and severe mental illness (SMI) are less likely to receive appropriate diabetes treatment and experience greater barriers in diabetes management compared to people without SMI. Research is needed in diabetes related patient reported outcomes to improve the diabetes support in this population. Aim: To explore overall...

Background: Fetal and early life growth is associated with adult risk of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. However,

Malnutrition has historically been researched and addressed within two distinct silos, focusing either on undernutrition, food insecurity, and micronutrient deficiencies, or on overweight, obesity, and dietary excess. However, through rapid global nutrition transition, an increasing proportion of individuals are exposed to different forms of malnut...

Background: Both impaired and accelerated postnatal growth have been associated with adult risks of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases, like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, the timing of the onset of cardiometabolic changes and the specific growth trajectories linking early growth with later disease risks are not well unders...

Background Accelerated growth in early childhood is an established risk factor for later obesity and cardiometabolic disease, but the relative importance of fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM) accretion is not well understood. We aimed to study how FM and FFM at birth and their accretion during infancy were associated with body composition and ca...

Background: Fetal and early life growth is associated with adult risk of obesity and cardiometabolic disease. However, little is known about the relative importance of birth weight and successive periods of weight gain on markers of cardiometabolic risk in childhood in low-income populations. Objectives: The objective was to study associations o...

Introduction: The role of infant fat growth in childhood obesity and adult type 2 diabetes is not clear. We have previously used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify four distinct fat mass (FM) growth patterns in early infancy. Here we examine their associations with adiposity and cardiometabolic outcomes at 5 years (y) of age. Methods: Air Disp...

Background: Among contemporary human populations, rates of cesarean delivery vary substantially, making it difficult to know if the procedure is inadequately available, or used excessively relative to medical need. A much-cited evolutionary hypothesis attributed birth complications to an “obstetric dilemma,” resulting from antagonistic selective pr...

Background/objectives: Low and high birth weight and rapid weight gain during infancy are associated with childhood obesity. Associations of birth and infancy body composition (BC) growth with childhood BC remain unknown in low-income countries. We aimed to investigate the associations of fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM) at birth and its accr...

Objective: To examine the relationship between body composition-specifically fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM)-in early infancy, and mental health outcomes in early childhood. Study design: In the Infant Anthropometry and Body Composition birth cohort study from Ethiopia, body composition was measured at birth and 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, and 6 m...

Early nutrition and growth have been found to be important early exposures for later development. Studies of crude growth in terms of weight and length/height, however, cannot elucidate how body composition (BC) might mediate associations between nutrition and later development. In this study, we aimed to examine the relation between fat mass (FM)...

Objective The objective of this study was to identify subgroups with distinct fat and fat‐free growth patterns in the first 6 months of life and describe predictors of these different patterns. Methods A total of 510 apparently healthy Ethiopian infants were followed from birth to 6 months of age. Each infant had at least three and up to six repea...

Background: We have previously shown that fat-free mass (FFM) at birth is associated with height at 2 y of age in Ethiopian children. However, to our knowledge, the relation between changes in body composition during early infancy and later linear growth has not been studied. Objective: This study examined the associations of early infancy fat m...

Background/objectives: Birth weight (BW), independent of socioeconomic status, has been identified as a predictor for childhood cognitive development. However, it is not known whether this relation is related to low BW per se or particularly related to a deficit in fat mass (FM) or fat-free mass (FFM) at birth. This study therefore aimed at invest...

Background: Low birth weight is associated with childhood stunting, but equivalent associations for birth body composition (BC) remain unknown. Objective: To assess associations of BC with height-for-age Z score (HAZ) at 2 years of age. Methods: In a prospective cohort study, fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM) were measured using air-displa...

Assessment of infant body composition (BC) is crucial to understand the consequences of suboptimal nutritional status and postnatal growth, and the effects of public health interventions. Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is a feasible, relatively inexpensive and noninvasive method for assessing BC. However, very little research has been condu...