Effect of plasma vitamin C levels on Parkinson's disease and age at onset: a Mendelian randomization study.
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ABSTRACT: Background
Until now, epidemiological evidence regarding the association between vitamin C intake (both diet and supplements) and Parkinson's disease (PD) remains inconsistent. Hence, it is necessary to establish the causal link between vitamin C levels and PD, and further develop effective therapies or prevention.Methods
We selected 11 newly identified plasma vitamin C genetic variants from a large-scale plasma vitamin C GWAS dataset (n = 52,018) as the effective instrumental variables, and extracted their corresponding GWAS summary statistics from PD (33,674 PD cases and 449,056 controls) and PD age at onset (AAO) (n = 28,568). We then performed a Mendelian randomization (MR) study to evaluate the causal association of plasma vitamin C levels with PD and PD AAO using inverse-variance weighted (IVW), the weighted median, MR-Egger, and MR-PRESSO test.Results
We did not observe any significant association between genetically increased vitamin C levels and PD. Interestingly, we found a reduced trend of PD AAO (1.134 years) with 1 SD genetically increased vitamin C levels using IVW (beta = - 1.134, 95% CI: [- 2.515, 0.248], P = 0.108). Importantly, this trend was further successfully verified using both weighted median and MR-Egger. Each 1 SD genetically increased vitamin C levels could reduce PD AAO 1.75 and 2.592 years using weighted median (beta = - 1.750, 95% CI: [- 3.396, - 0.105], P = 0.037) and MR-Egger (beta = - 2.592, 95% CI: [- 4.623, - 0.560], P = 0.012).Conclusions
We demonstrated the causal association between genetically increased plasma vitamin C levels and reduced PD AAO in people of European descent. Randomized controlled trials are required to clarify whether diet intake or supplement, or both could reduce the AAO of PD.
SUBMITTER: Liu H
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8142636 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Objective Until now, observational studies have explored the impact of vitamin C intake on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk, however, reported ambiguous findings. To develop effective therapies or prevention, the causal link between vitamin C levels and AD should be established. Methods Here, we selected 11 plasma vitamin C genetic variants from a large-scale plasma vitamin C GWAS dataset (N = 52,018) as the potential instrumental variables. We extracted their corresponding summary statistics from large-scale IGAP clinically diagnosed AD GWAS dataset (N = 63,926) and UK Biobank AD proxy phenotype GWAS dataset (N = 314,278), as well as two UK Biobank subgroups including the maternal AD group (27,696 cases of maternal AD and 260,980 controls) and paternal AD group (14,338 cases of paternal AD and 245,941 controls). We then performed a Mendelian randomization (MR) study to evaluate the causal association between plasma vitamin C levels and the risk of AD and AD proxy phenotype. Meanwhile, we further verified these findings using a large-scale cognitive performance GWAS dataset (N = 257,841). Results In IGAP, we found no significant causal association between plasma vitamin C levels and the risk of AD. In UK Biobank, we found that per 1 SD increase in plasma vitamin C levels (about 20.2 μmol/l) was significantly associated with the reduced risk of AD proxy phenotype (OR = 0.93, 95% CI 0.88–0.98, P = 7.00E−03). A subgroup MR analysis in UK Biobank indicated that per 1 SD increase in plasma vitamin C levels could significantly reduce the risk of AD proxy phenotype in the maternal AD group (OR = 0.89, 95% CI 0.84–0.94, P = 7.29E−05), but not in the paternal AD group (OR = 1.02, 95% CI 0.92–1.12, P = 7.59E−01). The leave-one-out permutation further showed that the SLC23A1 rs33972313 variant largely changed the precision of the overall MR estimates in all these four GWAS datasets. Meanwhile, we did not observe any significant causal effect of plasma vitamin C levels on the cognitive performance. Conclusion We demonstrated that there may be no causal association between plasma vitamin C levels and the risk of AD in people of European descent. The insistent findings in clinically diagnosed AD and AD proxy phenotype may be caused by the phenotypic heterogeneity. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12263-021-00700-9.
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Project description:BackgroundThough increasing epidemiological studies have evaluated the correlation between serum calcium contents and Parkinson's disease (PD), the results are inconsistent. At present, whether there is a causal association between serum calcium content and PD remains undetermined.Objective and methodsThis study was designed to explore the relationship between increased serum calcium contents and PD risk. In this present study, a Mendelian randomization trial was carried out using a large-scale serum calcium genome-wide association study (GWAS) dataset (N = 61,079, Europeans) and a large-scale PD GWAS dataset (N = 8,477, Europeans including 4,238 PD patients and 4,239 controls). Here, a total of four Mendelian randomization methods comprising weighted median, inverse-variance weighted meta-analysis (IVW), MR-Egger, and MR-PRESSO were used.ResultsOur data concluded that genetically higher serum calcium contents were not significantly related to PD.ConclusionIn conclusion, we provided genetic evidence that there was no direct causal relationship between serum calcium contents and PD. Hence, calcium supplementation may not result in reduced PD risk.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Mendelian randomization is a method for exploring observational associations to find evidence of causality. OBJECTIVE:To apply Mendelian randomization between risk factors/phenotypic traits (exposures) and PD in a large, unbiased manner, and to create a public resource for research. METHODS:We used two-sample Mendelian randomization in which the summary statistics relating to single-nucleotide polymorphisms from 5,839 genome-wide association studies of exposures were used to assess causal relationships with PD. We selected the highest-quality exposure genome-wide association studies for this report (n = 401). For the disease outcome, summary statistics from the largest published PD genome-wide association studies were used. For each exposure, the causal effect on PD was assessed using the inverse variance weighted method, followed by a range of sensitivity analyses. We used a false discovery rate of 5% from the inverse variance weighted analysis to prioritize exposures of interest. RESULTS:We observed evidence for causal associations between 12 exposures and risk of PD. Of these, nine were effects related to increasing adiposity and decreasing risk of PD. The remaining top three exposures that affected PD risk were tea drinking, time spent watching television, and forced vital capacity, but these may have been biased and were less convincing. Other exposures at nominal statistical significance included inverse effects of smoking and alcohol. CONCLUSIONS:We present a new platform which offers Mendelian randomization analyses for a total of 5,839 genome-wide association studies versus the largest PD genome-wide association studies available (https://pdgenetics.shinyapps.io/MRportal/). Alongside, we report further evidence to support a causal role for adiposity on lowering the risk of PD. © 2019 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.
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Project description:BackgroundCausality between plasma triglyceride (TG) levels and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk remains controversial despite more than four decades of study and two recent landmark trials, STRENGTH, and REDUCE-IT. Further unclear is the association between TG levels and non-atherosclerotic diseases across organ systems.MethodsHere, we conducted a phenome-wide, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis using inverse-variance weighted (IVW) regression to systematically infer the causal effects of plasma TG levels on 2600 disease traits in the European ancestry population of UK Biobank. For replication, we externally tested 221 nominally significant associations (p<0.05) in an independent cohort from FinnGen. To account for potential horizontal pleiotropy and the influence of invalid instrumental variables, we performed sensitivity analyses using MR-Egger regression, weighted median estimator, and MR-PRESSO. Finally, we used multivariable MR (MVMR) controlling for correlated lipid fractions to distinguish the independent effect of plasma TG levels.ResultsOur results identified seven disease traits reaching Bonferroni-corrected significance in both the discovery (p<1.92 × 10-5) and replication analyses (p<2.26 × 10-4), suggesting a causal relationship between plasma TG levels and ASCVDs, including coronary artery disease (OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.24-1.43, p=2.47 × 10-13). We also identified 12 disease traits that were Bonferroni-significant in the discovery or replication analysis and at least nominally significant in the other analysis (p<0.05), identifying plasma TG levels as a novel potential risk factor for nine non-ASCVD diseases, including uterine leiomyoma (OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.10-1.29, p=1.17 × 10-5).ConclusionsTaking a phenome-wide, two-sample MR approach, we identified causal associations between plasma TG levels and 19 disease traits across organ systems. Our findings suggest unrealized drug repurposing opportunities or adverse effects related to approved and emerging TG-lowering agents, as well as mechanistic insights for future studies.FundingRD is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (R35-GM124836) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH (R01-HL139865 and R01-HL155915).
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Project description:OBJECTIVE:Observational studies have shown that increased plasma urate is associated with lower risk of Parkinson's disease (PD), but these studies were not designed to test causality. If a causal relationship exists, then modulating plasma urate levels could be a potential preventive avenue for PD. We used a large two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) design to assess for a causal relationship between plasma urate and PD risk. METHODS:We used a genetic instrument consisting of 31 independent loci for plasma urate on a case-control genome-wide association study data set, which included 13,708 PD cases and 95,282 controls. Individual effect estimates for each SNP were combined using the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method. Two additional methods, MR-Egger and a penalized weighted median (PWM)-based approach, were used to assess potential bias attributed to pleiotropy or invalid instruments. RESULTS:We found no evidence for a causal relationship between urate and PD, with an effect estimate from the IVW method of odds ratio (OR) 1.03 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.88-1.20) per 1-standard-deviation increase in plasma urate levels. MR Egger and PWM analyses yielded similar estimates (OR, 0.99 [95% CI, 0.83-1.17] and 0.99 [95% CI, 0.86-1.14], respectively). INTERPRETATION:We did not find evidence for a linear causal protective effect by urate on PD risk. The associations observed in previous observational studies may be, in part, attributed to confounding or reverse causality. In the context of the present findings, strategies to elevate circulating urate levels may not reduce overall PD risk. Ann Neurol 2018;84:191-199.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are the top two common neurodegenerative diseases in elderly. Recent studies found the ?-synuclein have a key role in AD. Although many clinical and pathological features between AD and PD are shared, the genetic association between them remains unclear, especially whether ?-synuclein in PD genetically alters AD risk. RESULTS:We did not obtain any significant result (OR?=?0.918, 95% CI: 0.782-1.076, P?=?0.291) in MR analysis between PD and AD risk. In MR between ?-synuclein in PD with AD risk, we only extracted rs356182 as the IV through a strict screening process. The result indicated a significant association based on IVW method (OR?=?0.638, 95% CI: 0.485-0.838, P?=?1.20E-03). In order to examine the robustness of the IVW method, we used other three complementary analytical methods and also obtained consistent results. CONCLUSION:The overall PD genetic risk factors did not predict AD risk, but the ?-synuclein susceptibility genetic variants in PD reduce the AD risk. We believe that our findings may help to understand the association between them, which may be useful for future genetic studies for both diseases.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Observational studies have found that relative to healthy controls, patients with Parkinson's disease have lower circulating concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, a clinical biomarker of vitamin D status. However, the causality of this association is uncertain. We undertook a Mendelian randomization study to investigate whether genetically decreased 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations are associated with PD to minimize confounding and prevent bias because of reverse causation. METHODS:As instrumental variables for the Mendelian randomization analysis, we used 4 single-nucleotide polymorphisms that affect 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations (rs2282679 in GC, rs12785878 near DHCR7, rs10741657 near CYP2R1, and rs6013897 near CYP24A1). Summary effect size estimates of the 4 single-nucleotide polymorphisms on PD were obtained from the International Parkinson's Disease Genomics Consortium (including 5333 PD cases and 12,019 controls). The estimates of the 4 single-nucleotide polymorphisms were combined using an inverse-variance weighted meta-analysis. RESULTS:Of the 4 single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations, one (rs6013897 in CYP24A1) was associated with PD (odds ratio per 25-hydroxyvitamin D-decreasing allele, 1.09; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.16; P?=?0.008), whereas no association was observed with the other 3 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (P?>?0.23). The odds ratio of PD per genetically predicted 10% lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration, based on the 4 single-nucleotide polymorphisms, was 0.98 (95% confidence interval, 0.93-1.04; P?=?0.56). CONCLUSIONS:This Mendelian randomization study provides no clear support that lowered 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration is causally associated with risk of PD. © 2017 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.
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