A Sex-specific Mendelian Randomization-Phenome-Wide Association Study of Body Mass Index
Listed in
This article is not in any list yet, why not save it to one of your lists.Abstract
Background
Trials of incretins are making it increasingly clear that body mass index (BMI) is linked to several diseases throughout life, but trials cannot provide a comprehensive assessment of the role of BMI in health-related attributes for men and women. To systematically investigate the role of BMI, we conducted a sex-specific Mendelian randomization-phenome-wide association study.
Methods
We comprehensively examined the associations of genetically predicted BMI in women (n: 194,174) and men (n: 167,020) with health-related attributes from the UK Biobank with inverse variance weighting and sensitivity analysis.
Results
BMI impacted 232 of 776 traits considered in women and 204 of 681 traits in men, after adjusting for false discovery; differences by sex were found for 105 traits. BMI was more strongly positively associated with heart disease, heart failure and hypertensive heart disease in men than women. BMI was more strongly positively associated with apolipoprotein B (ApoB), diastolic blood pressure, neuroticism, arthritis and triglycerides in women than men.
Conclusion
Our study revealed that BMI might affect a wide range of health-related attributes and highlights notable sex differences in its impact, including opposite associations for certain attributes, such as ApoB and neuroticism. These findings emphasize the importance of maintaining a healthy BMI.
Funding
None
