Published online Nov 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i31.11403
Peer-review started: May 8, 2022
First decision: July 12, 2022
Revised: July 26, 2022
Accepted: September 20, 2022
Article in press: September 20, 2022
Published online: November 6, 2022
Processing time: 171 Days and 16.4 Hours
Lipids increase the risk of sleep apnea; however, the causality between them is still inconclusive.
To explore the causal relationship between serum lipids and sleep apnea using two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.
Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data related to serum lipids were obtained from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium study, which included 188578 individuals of European ancestry. Additionally, sleep apnea-related SNP data were collected from the United Kingdom Biobank study, which comprised 463005 individuals of European ancestry. Two-sample MR analysis was performed to assess the causality between serum lipids and sleep apnea based on the above public data.
Genetically predicted low-density lipoprotein (odds ratio [OR] = 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.99 to 1.00; P = 0.58), high-density lipoprotein (OR = 0.99, 95%CI = 0.99 to 1.00; P = 0.91), triglyceride (OR = 1.00, 95%CI = 0.99 to 1.00; P = 0.92), and total cholesterol (OR = 0.99, 95%CI = 0.99 to 1.00; P = 0.33) were causally unrelated to sleep apnea.
Our MR analysis suggests that genetically predicted serum lipids are not risk factors of sleep apnea.
Core Tip: This study had a couple of key advantages. First, compared with other observational studies, the genetic variants can be obtained from different sample of individuals, and genetic associations can be obtained from large genome-wide association studies, which can greatly improve the statistical ability to detect small effects of complex phenotypes. Second, the study excluded more confounding factors, heterogeneity and level pleiotropy, and conducted sensitivity tests to make our results more convincing.