Childhood adiposity and risk of type 1 diabetes: A Mendelian randomization study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is increasing globally. One hypothesis is that increasing childhood obesity rates may explain part of this increase, but, as T1D is rare, intervention studies are challenging to perform. The aim of this study was to assess this hypothesis with a Mendelian randomization approach that uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to test for causal associations.

Methods and findings

We created a genetic instrument of 23 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with childhood adiposity in children aged 2-10 years. Summary-level association results for these 23 SNPs with childhood-onset (<17 years) T1D were extracted from a meta-analysis of genome-wide association study with 5,913 T1D cases and 8,828 reference samples.

SUBMITTER: Censin JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5538636 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature