Obesity and Multiple Sclerosis: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Observational studies have reported an association between obesity, as measured by elevated body mass index (BMI), in early adulthood and risk of multiple sclerosis (MS). However, bias potentially introduced by confounding and reverse causation may have influenced these findings. Therefore, we elected to perform Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to evaluate whether genetically increased BMI is associated with an increased risk of MS.

Methods and findings

Employing a two-sample MR approach, we used summary statistics from the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) consortium and the International MS Genetics Consortium (IMSGC), the largest genome-wide association studies for BMI and MS, respectively (GIANT: n = 322,105; IMSGC: n = 14,498 cases a

SUBMITTER: Mokry LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4924848 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature