Educational attainment as a modifier for the effect of polygenic scores for cardiovascular risk factors: cross-sectional and prospective analysis of UK Biobank.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Understanding the interplay between educational attainment and genetic predictors of cardiovascular risk may improve our understanding of the aetiology of educational inequalities in cardiovascular disease.

Methods

In up to 320 120 UK Biobank participants of White British ancestry (mean age = 57 years, female 54%), we created polygenic scores for nine cardiovascular risk factors or diseases: alcohol consumption, body mass index, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, lifetime smoking behaviour, systolic blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke. We estimated whether educational attainment modified genetic susceptibility to these risk factors and diseases.

Results

On the additive scale, higher educational attainmen

SUBMITTER: Carter AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9189971 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature