Age at menarche, age at natural menopause, and risk of rheumatoid arthritis - a Mendelian randomization study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Hormonal reproductive factors have been suggested to play an important role in the etiology of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune inflammatory disorder affecting primarily women. We conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study examining three relevant exposures, age at menarche (AAM), age at natural menopause (ANM), and age at first birth (AFB) with the risk of RA.

Methods

We collected summary statistics from the hitherto largest GWAS conducted in AAM (N = 329,345), ANM (N = 69,360), AFB (N = 251,151), and RA (N_case = 14,361, N_control = 43,923), all of European ancestry. We constructed strong instruments using hundreds of exposure-associated genetic variants and estimated causal relationship through different MR approaches

SUBMITTER: Zhu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8034136 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature