Data types
There are several types of data in SIMPLER, and data is added continously. Below is a brief description of data.
If you have questions or need exact numbers, for example when preparing applications, you are welcome to contact the SIMPLER office.
Questionnaire data
Questionnaires with health, diet and life style questions have been sent to the participants repeatedly from 1987 for women and from 1997 to men with last follow up during 2019. Please read questionnaires and variable list for exact formulation of questions and variables. The variable list not only includes each original variable, but also derived variables on life style, nutrients, energy intake and suggestions on how to merge variables if needed. In total there are more than 1000 000 respondents from the start of the cohorts with various drop outs due to age and death over the years.
Clinical data
Clinical data includes biometric data such as height, upper arm, waist, hip and calf circumference in addition to sagittal measurment.There are also blood preasure measurments, values of glucose and iron levels, and body compostion either using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan or bioimpedance scale. Blood collected at the clinical visit has been analysed regarding common clinical chemistry variables such as blood fat levels and CRP. Not only physical factors are documented, participants also answered a mini mental test.
Adjacent to the visit the participants filled in a questionnaire on diet and lifestyle questions covering the last month (in comparison to the questionnaires in SMC and COSM covering the last year) and a one-day-food-diary.
Clinical data is available for almost 13 500 participants with varying coverage. A more detailed information on variables and coverage is under construction.If you are interested in clinical data you are welcome to send an email to the SIMPLER office with your questions.
Registry data
The cohorts are matched to a number of registries at the Board of Health and Social Welfare at an annual basis, including in- and out pateint registry, cause of death registry, prescribed drug registry and national cancer registry for a selected number of variables. SIMPLER also has ethical approval to match against a number of other registries if needed.
For registry data there is full coverage for all cohorts.
Genome profile
There are two different kinds of genome profiles, Infinium Global Screening Array (Illumina) and Infinium Oncoarray (Illumina). For the former there are approxiamtely 41 000 unique profiles, deleting non-europeans and related individuals there are approximately 37 000 profiles. For the latter there are approximately 8 000 profiles.
Proteome profile
Proteome profile has been analysed usingthe panels CVD II, CVD III and metabolism from Olink Proteomics using Li/Hep blood plasma. The proteome profile covers the clinical participants, approximately 13 500 participants.
Metabolome profile
Li/hep blood plasma samples have been screened for untargeted metabolites at Rikard Landberg Lab at Chalmers University of Technology using HPLC/MS. There are approximately 5 000 unidentified substances accessible as a matrix with peak infromation and a library is being prepared for 200-250 biomarkers. The metabolome profile covers the clinical participants, approximately 13 500 particiapnts.
Microbiome profile
Analysis of gut microbiota has been performed by Centre for Translational Microbiome Research, Karolinska Institutet, using DNBseq technology, shotgun. Available is a library with species/functions. The microbiome profile covers approximately half of the clinical participants, approximately 7 000 particiapnts.