Silja Hvid Overgaard graduated as a Bachelor in Medicine in 2011 and as a Master of Science in Human Nutrition in 2016. Silja is co-affiliated as a PhD student with the Focused Research Unit for Molecular Diagnostics and Clinical Research, University Hospital of Southern Denmark (University of Southern Denmark), and as a fellow of clinical epidemiology at Musculoskeletal Statistics Unit, at The Parker Institute.
Since the 1st of September 2019, Silja has been enrolled as a PhD student: “Prognostic factors and personalized medicine in chronic inflammatory diseases”. Understanding and improving the prognosis of chronic inflammatory conditions should be a priority in clinical research and practice. During the PhD thesis, specific factors (such as the fiber-to-meat ratio) will be evaluated as to whether these are associated with a better prognosis (prognostic factor research); Silja will develop, and validate the impact of the statistical analysis, predicting the individual risk of a future outcome from the prespecified prognostic provisionally causal model.
We envision that the use of prognostic information would help tailor treatment decisions to an individual or group of individuals with similar characteristics: Specifically, the aim is to explore the clinical (prognostic) value of dietary patterns on response to treatment in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases who initiate treatment with a biological agent.
Further reading:
Impact of red and processed meat and fibre intake on treatment outcomes among patients with chronic inflammatory diseases: protocol for a prospective cohort study of prognostic factors and personalised medicine. Christensen R, Heitmann BL, Andersen KW, et al. BMJ Open. 2018 Feb 8;8(2):e018166.
A Proposal for a Study on Treatment Selection and Lifestyle Recommendations in Chronic Inflammatory Diseases: A Danish Multidisciplinary Collaboration on Prognostic Factors and Personalised Medicine. Andersen V, Holmskov U, Sørensen SB, et al. Nutrients. 2017 May 15;9(5):499.