Body Mass Index and the Risk of Atrial Fibrillation: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Overview

Journal Nutrients

Date 2022 May 14

PMID 35565843

Authors

Mi Ma

Hong Zhi

Shengyi Yang

Evan Yi-Wen Yu

Lina Wang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Methods: The independent genetic variants associated with BMI ( = 303) at the genome-wide significant level were derived as instrumental variables (IV) from the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) consortium consisting of 681,275 individuals of European ancestry. We then derived the outcome data from a GWAS meta-analysis comprised of 60,620 cases and 970,216 controls of European ancestry. The TSMR analyses were performed in five methods, namely inverse variance weighted (IVW) method, MR-Egger regression, the weighted median estimator (WME), the generalized summary data-based Mendelian randomization (GSMR), and the robust adjusted profile score (RAPS), to investigate whether BMI was causally associated with the risk of AF.

Results: We found a genetically determined 1-standard deviation (SD) increment of BMI causally increased a 42.5% risk of AF (OR = 1.425; 95% CI, 1.346 to 1.509) based on the IVW method, which was consistent with the results of MR-Egger regression, WME, GSMR, as well as RAPS. The Mendelian randomization assumptions did not seem to be violated.

Conclusion: This study provides evidence that higher BMI causally increased the risk of AF, suggesting control of BMI and obesity for prevention of AF.

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