The Causal Relationship Between Acne Vulgaris and BMI: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Overview

Journal J Cosmet Dermatol

Specialty Dermatology

Date 2025 Mar 4

PMID 40035224

Authors

Zhifeng Li

Weikun Qi

Tianying Zang

Zhiyong Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: As an inflammatory skin condition, acne usually presents with a complex pathogenesis. Recent studies suggest that BMI may relate to the incidence of acne. Mendelian randomization is a statistical method that is used to evaluate the causal effects of exposure factors on outcome variables.

Methods: We applied the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method to evaluate the causal effect as the primary analysis between BMI and acne in our two-sample Mendelian randomization study. We included 58 SNPs accounting for 2.5% (R) of the BMI variation as instrumental variables (IVs) for BMI-acne causal estimations.

Result: The F-statistic obtained from the first stage of the MR regression model was 61. Importantly, the results from all three methods consistently indicated that an increase in BMI did not elevate the risk of acne, with each result reaching statistical significance. Cochran's Q test revealed no evidence of heterogeneity among the IV estimates for individual variants. Our I values suggested low heterogeneity, thereby reinforcing the reliability of the MR estimates. Additionally, the "leave-one-out" analysis confirmed that no single SNP disproportionately affected the IVW point estimate.

Conclusion: Our findings suggested that there is no causal relationship between BMI and acne.

References

Bowden J, Del Greco M F, Minelli C, Davey Smith G, Sheehan N, Thompson J . A framework for the investigation of pleiotropy in two-sample summary data Mendelian randomization. Stat Med. 2017; 36(11):1783-1802. PMC: 5434863. DOI: 10.1002/sim.7221. View

Tan J, Kang S, Leyden J . Prevalence and Risk Factors of Acne Scarring Among Patients Consulting Dermatologists in the USA. J Drugs Dermatol. 2017; 16(2):97-102. View

Lu P, Hsu C . Body mass index is negatively associated with acne lesion counts in Taiwanese women with post-adolescent acne. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2014; 29(10):2046-50. DOI: 10.1111/jdv.12754. View

Harper J . Acne vulgaris: What's new in our 40th year. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2019; 82(2):526-527. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaad.2019.01.092. View

Tilles G . Acne pathogenesis: history of concepts. Dermatology. 2014; 229(1):1-46. DOI: 10.1159/000364860. View

Verbanck M, Chen C, Neale B, Do R . Detection of widespread horizontal pleiotropy in causal relationships inferred from Mendelian randomization between complex traits and diseases. Nat Genet. 2018; 50(5):693-698. PMC: 6083837. DOI: 10.1038/s41588-018-0099-7. View

Hatala R, Keitz S, Wyer P, Guyatt G . Tips for learners of evidence-based medicine: 4. Assessing heterogeneity of primary studies in systematic reviews and whether to combine their results. CMAJ. 2005; 172(5):661-5. PMC: 550638. DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.1031920. View

Snast I, Dalal A, Twig G, Astman N, Kedem R, Levin D . Acne and obesity: A nationwide study of 600,404 adolescents. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2019; 81(3):723-729. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaad.2019.04.009. View

Liu D, Bu D, Li H, Wang Q, Ding X, Fang X . Intestinal metabolites and the risk of autistic spectrum disorder: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study. Front Psychiatry. 2023; 13:1034214. PMC: 9877426. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1034214. View

10.

Teder-Laving M, Kals M, Reigo A, Ehin R, Objartel T, Vaht M . Correction: Genome-wide meta-analysis identifies novel loci conferring risk of acne vulgaris. Eur J Hum Genet. 2023; 32(9):1192. PMC: 11369175. DOI: 10.1038/s41431-023-01366-0. View

11.

Batan T, Acer E, Kaya Erdogan H, Agaoglu E, Bilgin M, Saracoglu Z . The Relationship Between Nutrition Habits, BMI, Anxiety, and Seborrheic Dermatitis. J Cosmet Dermatol. 2025; 24(1):e16737. PMC: 11701871. DOI: 10.1111/jocd.16737. View

12.

Wang X, Wang X, Wang H, Yang M, Dong W, Shao D . Association between psoriasis and lung cancer: two-sample Mendelian randomization analyses. BMC Pulm Med. 2023; 23(1):4. PMC: 9814449. DOI: 10.1186/s12890-022-02297-0. View

13.

Wu Y, Wang X, Wu W, Yang J . Mendelian randomization analysis reveals an independent causal relationship between four gut microbes and acne vulgaris. Front Microbiol. 2024; 15:1326339. PMC: 10869500. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1326339. View

14.

Heng A, Chew F . Systematic review of the epidemiology of acne vulgaris. Sci Rep. 2020; 10(1):5754. PMC: 7113252. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-62715-3. View

15.

Kamat M, Blackshaw J, Young R, Surendran P, Burgess S, Danesh J . PhenoScanner V2: an expanded tool for searching human genotype-phenotype associations. Bioinformatics. 2019; 35(22):4851-4853. PMC: 6853652. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btz469. View

16.

Cho Y, Haycock P, Sanderson E, Gaunt T, Zheng J, Morris A . Exploiting horizontal pleiotropy to search for causal pathways within a Mendelian randomization framework. Nat Commun. 2020; 11(1):1010. PMC: 7035387. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14452-4. View

17.

Del Prete M, Mauriello M, Faggiano A, Di Somma C, Monfrecola G, Fabbrocini G . Insulin resistance and acne: a new risk factor for men?. Endocrine. 2012; 42(3):555-60. DOI: 10.1007/s12020-012-9647-6. View

18.

Di Landro A, Cazzaniga S, Parazzini F, Ingordo V, Cusano F, Atzori L . Family history, body mass index, selected dietary factors, menstrual history, and risk of moderate to severe acne in adolescents and young adults. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2012; 67(6):1129-35. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaad.2012.02.018. View

19.

Say Y, Heng A, Reginald K, Wong Y, Teh K, Rawanan Shah S . Modifiable and non-modifiable epidemiological risk factors for acne, acne severity and acne scarring among Malaysian Chinese: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health. 2021; 21(1):601. PMC: 8005239. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-021-10681-4. View

20.

Rahaman S, De D, Handa S, Pal A, Sachdeva N, Ghosh T . Association of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 gene polymorphisms with plasma levels of IGF-1 and acne severity. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2016; 75(4):768-773. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaad.2016.05.019. View