Readable research linked to original sources
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Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
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Readable research linked to original sources
Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
Loading articles data…
Readable research linked to original sources
Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
21 articles
Newest firstBackground and aims Unhealthy lifestyle may influence semen quality. This research aimed to investigate the association of unhealthy lifestyle with the risk of low semen quality and further to examine the causal relationship by Mendelian randomization (MR) method. Methods The association of six unhealthy lifestyle habits (smoking, alcohol consumption, coffee consumption, sedentary behavior, obesity, and sleep dist…
Open article record in new tab ↗Background Rapid changes in attitudes, legality, and patterns of cannabis use (CU) underscore the importance of understanding its impact on mental health. Although links between CU and personality disorders (PDs) are documented, their causality remains uncertain. Methods Employing Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) data, this study investigated the causal relationship between cannabis use disorder (CUD) and li…
Open article record in new tab ↗Emerging evidence suggests that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP1R) agonists may have potential benefits for mental illnesses. However, their exact effects remain unclear. This study investigated the causal relationship between glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP1RA) and the risk of 10 common mental illnesses, including attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, anorexia nervosa, anxiety disorder…
Open article record in new tab ↗Although substance use is associated with a shortened lifespan, impeded health and accelerated biological ageing, the factors contributing to the associations between substance use and ageing are poorly understood. We used summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to investigate whether substance involvement (N from 28K to 2M)-including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and opioid use and use disorde…
BackgroundCannabis and tobacco use are consistently associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) in conventional observational studies. However, these substances are often co-used, and the independent causal role of cannabis use in risk of MDD remains unclear. MethodsUnivariable and multivariable MR (MVMR) were used to explore the total and independent causal effects of genetic liability to tobacco use and cann…
Open article record in new tab ↗BackgroundDorsopathies are a group of musculoskeletal disorders affecting the spinal column and related structures, contributing significantly to global disability rates and healthcare costs. Despite their prevalence, the genetic and biological mechanisms underlying dorsopathies are not fully understood. MethodSummary-data-based Mendelian Randomization (SMR) and colocalization analysis were employed, using data fr…
Rationale & objective The association between cannabis use and chronic kidney disease (CKD) is controversial. We aimed to assess association of CKD with cannabis use in a large cohort study and then assess causality using Mendelian randomization with a genome-wide association study (GWAS). Study design Retrospective cohort study and genome-wide association study. Setting & participants The retrospective study was…
Open article record in new tab ↗Mendelian Randomization (MR) has been widely applied to infer causality of exposures on outcomes in the genome wide association (GWAS) era. Existing approaches are often subject to biases from multiple sources including weak instruments, sample overlap, and measurement error. We introduce MRBEE, a computationally efficient multivariable MR method that can correct for all known biases simultaneously, which is demon…
Open article record in new tab ↗BACKGROUNDAlzheimers disease and other dementias are progressive neurodegenerative disorders with profound impacts on cognitive function. There is a shortage of economic evidence relating to the impact Alzheimers disease on healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). METHODSWe employed two study designs to model the association between Alzheimers disease and healthcare costs and QALYs. We first estim…
Open article record in new tab ↗Coffee or caffeine consumption has been associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, implying a shared etiology. However, whether these associations reflect causality remains largely unknown. To understand the genetic structure of the association between decaffeinated coffee consumption (DCC) and neuropsychiatric traits, we examined the genetic correlation, causality, and shared genetic structure between DCC and ne…
Open article record in new tab ↗Since the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic, our understanding of the underlying disease mechanism and factors associated with the disease severity has dramatically increased. A recent study investigated the relationship between substance use disorders (SUD) and the risk of severe COVID-19 in the United States and concluded that the risk of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19 is directly correlated with…
Open article record in new tab ↗Poorer performance in tasks testing executive function (EF) is associated with a range of psychopathologies such as schizophrenia, major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety, as well as smoking and alcohol consumption. We used two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization to examine whether these may reflect causal relationships and the direction of causation. We used genome-wide association study summary data…
Open article record in new tab ↗Knowledge of the impact of smoking on healthcare costs is important for establishing the external effects of smoking and for evaluating policies intended to modify this behavior. Conventional analysis of this association is difficult because of omitted variable bias, reverse causality, and measurement error. We approached these challenges using a Mendelian Randomization study design, in which genetic variants asso…
Open article record in new tab ↗Background and aims Initial use of drugs such as tobacco and alcohol may lead to subsequent more problematic drug use-the 'gateway' hypothesis. However, observed associations may be due to a shared underlying risk factor, such as trait impulsivity. We used bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) to test the gateway hypothesis. Design Our main method was inverse-variance weighted (IVW) MR, with other methods inc…
Open article record in new tab ↗BACKGROUND: Poor mental health has consistently been associated with substance use (smoking, alcohol drinking, cannabis use, and consumption of caffeinated drinks). To properly inform public health policy it is crucial to understand the mechanisms underlying these associations, and most importantly, whether or not they are causal. METHODS: In this pre-registered systematic review, we assessed the evidence for caus…
Open article record in new tab ↗Several observational studies have shown that cannabis use has negative effects on the cardiovascular system, but the causality of this relationship has not been confirmed. The aim of the current study was to estimate the effects of genetically determined cannabis use on risk of cardiovascular diseases. Ten single-nucleotide polymorphisms related to cannabis use were employed as instruments to estimate the associa…
Open article record in new tab ↗INTRODUCTION: The emergence of psychosis in at-risk individuals results from interactions between genetic vulnerability and environmental factors, possibly involving dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Hypercorticism was indeed described in schizophrenia and ultra-high-risk states, but its association with clinical outcome has yet to be demonstrated. The impact of stress through cortisol may…
Background and aim Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease. Previous observational studies suggested that cannabis use may be associated with a lower risk for NAFLD but the causal relationship remains unclear. We aim in this study to examine the causal effect of cannabis consumption on the risk of NAFLD using a Mendelian randomization analysis. Clarifying this causal effe…
Open article record in new tab ↗Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has consistently been associated with substance use, but the nature of this association is not fully understood. To inform intervention development and public health messages, a vital question is whether there are causal pathways from ADHD to substance use and/or vice versa. We applied bidirectional Mendelian randomization, using summary-level data from the largest a…
Open article record in new tab ↗Estimates of the marginal effect of measures of adiposity such as body mass index (BMI) on healthcare costs are important for the formulation and evaluation of policies targeting adverse weight profiles. Many existing estimates of this association are affected by endogeneity bias caused by simultaneity, measurement error and omitted variables. The contribution of this study is to avoid this bias by using a novel i…
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