The impact of education inequality on rheumatoid arthritis risk is mediated by smoking and body mass index: Mendelian randomization study.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To estimate the causal relationship between educational attainment-as a proxy for socioeconomic inequality-and risk of RA, and quantify the roles of smoking and BMI as potential mediators.

Methods

Using the largest genome-wide association studies (GWAS), we performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study of genetically predicted educational attainment (instrumented using 1265 variants from 766 345 individuals) and RA (14 361 cases, 43 923 controls). We used two-step MR to quantify the proportion of education's effect on RA mediated by smoking exposure (as a composite index capturing duration, heaviness and cessation, using 124 variants from 462 690 individuals) and BMI (517 variants, 681 275 individuals), and multivariable MR to estimate proportion mediat

SUBMITTER: Zhao SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9071527 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature