Educational attainment, body mass index, and smoking as mediators in kidney disease risk: a two-step Mendelian randomization study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Educational attainment (EA) has been linked to various health outcomes, including kidney disease (KD). However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study aims to assess the causal relationship between EA and KD and quantify the mediation effects of modifiable risk factors using a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.

Methods

We performed a two-sample MR analysis utilizing summary statistics from large-scale European genome-wide association studies (GWAS). EA (NGWAS = 766,345) was used as the exposure, and KD (Ncase/Ncontrol= 5,951/212,871) was the outcome. A two-step MR method was applied to identify and quantify the mediation effects of 24 candidate risk factors.

Results

Each additional 4.2 years of genetically predicted EA was associated with

SUBMITTER: Zhang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11899219 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature