Causal Relationship Between Gluten-Free Diet and Autoimmune-Related Disease Risk: A Comprehensive Mendelian Randomization Study.

ABSTRACT: While the gluten-free diet (GFD) is primarily used to treat celiac disease (CD), recent research suggests it may also offer benefits for autoimmune-related diseases (ARDs), though findings remain inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate the potential protective effect of a GFD against ARDs by Mendelian Randomization (MR) analysis. Utilizing data from over 500,000 samples from the UK Biobank and other publicly available genome-wide association studies (GWAS), MR analysis revealed a significant negative causal relationship between GFD and the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (OR = 0.782, 95% CI = [0.727-0.841], p < 0.001). Mediation analysis identified immune cells such as CD14+ CD16+ monocyte absolute count (mediating 2.441% of the effect), CD14+ CD16+ monocyte percentage (

SUBMITTER: Peng Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11704703 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature