An expert in fatty liver disease

Not all overweight people suffer from metabolic disorders or develop diabetes. Hannele Yki-Järvinen knows why.

“Really?” That is the surprised and somewhat bemused response from Hannele Yki-Järvinen, professor of medicine, on learning that she is one of the most cited researchers at the University of Helsinki.

“I’ve no problem with these rankings. All researchers should occasionally browse them to see which of their studies have been cited often and which haven’t. It’s a good indicator of what was relevant and what, in hindsight, wasn’t."

It’s all about insulin

Yki-Järvinen has earned a worldwide reputation for her research on adult diabetes and its insulin treatment as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease associated with diabetes. She has contributed to a total of some 340 academic publications and supposes that her articles published over the years in the New England Journal of Medicine, the most respected journal in the field, have been cited particularly often.

“But the number of publications has no effect on the frequency of citations," Yki-Järvinen points out. “Quality and novelty value are key.”

In her research, Yki-Järvinen has demonstrated that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease determines whether an overweight person develops metabolic disorders, which may lead, for example, to adult diabetes. Previous research had found no connection between fatty liver disease and diabetes.

According to Yki-Järvinen, “It’s about insulin resistance. When the liver gets fatty, the hormone insulin can’t regulate the amount of sugar and fat that the liver secretes into the blood.”

Although Yki-Järvinen is thoroughly familiar with fatty liver disease, her research group still has several related issues to explore. “We’re interested, for instance, in the mechanism whereby diet can induce fatty liver disease,” Yki-Järvinen says of her research group’s future plans.

Go abroad!

So, that sounds like a major plan for Professor herself but what about the others: How does a researcher reach the top of the citation rankings? Yki-Järvinen has no easy recipe. “Qualities shared by most highly cited researchers include creativity, courage, patience and an in-depth engagement with the topic.”

A research stint abroad is also a plus. “I developed a sound, critical approach in the USA. I began reflecting on the difference between the hypothesis and objectives of research as well as on the new knowledge that research can contribute,” explains Yki-Järvinen, who has worked as an associate professor at the University of Texas and as a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. “I’d encourage all young scholars to go abroad!”

Text: Anu Vallinkoski