Karin Modig

Karin Modig is an Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM), Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Sweden. She leads the 'Ageing and Health' research group, focusing on the aging population, drivers of longevity, and consequences of aging. With expertise in Sweden's national population registers, she has established herself as a leading researcher in register-based epidemiological studies of exceptional longevity.

Dr. Modig completed her PhD at KI's Department of Public Health in September 2010 and continued with postdoctoral training at IMM, KI, where she began specializing in aging research. Her academic journey has been centered at Karolinska Institutet, where she has developed significant expertise in epidemiological methods and register-based research.

Her research primarily investigates the health patterns of centenarians, examining disease trajectories and biomarker profiles to understand the secrets of exceptional longevity. She has discovered that centenarians not only develop diseases more slowly but often avoid major age-related conditions altogether, challenging the assumption that longer life inevitably means more disease. Her work on blood biomarkers revealed that centenarians tend to maintain more stable metabolic profiles, with lower levels of glucose, creatinina, and uric acid from their sixties onwards.

Her publications demonstrate a consistent focus on longevity mechanisms, with particular attention to disease patterns, biomarker profiles, and register-based epidemiological methods. The research shows a progression from descriptive studies of centenarian health to more sophisticated analyses of the mechanisms behind exceptional longevity.

• Member of the steering group for SINGS (Swedish INterdisciplinary Graduate School in Register-Based Research)
• Lectures on epidemiological methods and register-based research at graduate and post-graduate levels
• Recipient of funding from Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare

Dr. Modig works in an interdisciplinary team and supervises students across multiple disciplines including Epidemiology, Clinical Medicine, and Demography. Her 'Ageing and Health' research group utilizes Sweden's comprehensive national registers to conduct large-scale studies of aging populations, with a particular focus on the exceptional longevity observed in centenarians.