TY - JOUR
T1 - Causal relationship between years of education and the occurrence of rheumatoid arthritis
AU - Bae, Sang Cheol
AU - Lee, Young Ho
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding This study was supported by the Bio and Medical Technology Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2017M3A9B4050335), Republic of Korea.
Publisher Copyright:
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - Objective To search out whether or not years of education is causally related to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Method We conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomisation (MR) analysis employing inverse-variance weighted (IVW), weighted median and MR-Egger regression analysis. We chose statistic data of years of education from the UK Biobank genome-wide association studies (GWASs) (n=293 723) as the exposure and a meta-analysis of GWASs of RA with autoantibody (n=5539) and European controls (n=20 169) as the outcome. Results We selected a total of 49 single nucleotide polymorphisms as instrumental variables (IVs). The IVW method instructed an inverse causative relationship between years of education and RA (β=- 0.039, SE=0.283, p=0.008). MR-Egger regression test showed that directional pleiotropy seems not to bias the MR results (intercept=0.028; p=0.358). MR-Egger analysis demonstrated no causative relationship between RA and years of education (β=- 2.320, SE=1.709, p=0.181). However, the weighted median approach indicated a causative association between RA and years of education (β=-0.950, SE=0.355, p=0.008). Conclusions The MR analysis supported a potential inverse causative relationship between years of education and development of RA.
AB - Objective To search out whether or not years of education is causally related to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Method We conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomisation (MR) analysis employing inverse-variance weighted (IVW), weighted median and MR-Egger regression analysis. We chose statistic data of years of education from the UK Biobank genome-wide association studies (GWASs) (n=293 723) as the exposure and a meta-analysis of GWASs of RA with autoantibody (n=5539) and European controls (n=20 169) as the outcome. Results We selected a total of 49 single nucleotide polymorphisms as instrumental variables (IVs). The IVW method instructed an inverse causative relationship between years of education and RA (β=- 0.039, SE=0.283, p=0.008). MR-Egger regression test showed that directional pleiotropy seems not to bias the MR results (intercept=0.028; p=0.358). MR-Egger analysis demonstrated no causative relationship between RA and years of education (β=- 2.320, SE=1.709, p=0.181). However, the weighted median approach indicated a causative association between RA and years of education (β=-0.950, SE=0.355, p=0.008). Conclusions The MR analysis supported a potential inverse causative relationship between years of education and development of RA.
KW - educational attainment
KW - mendelian randomization
KW - rheumatoid arthritis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066885360&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1136/postgradmedj-2018-136374
DO - 10.1136/postgradmedj-2018-136374
M3 - Article
C2 - 31127051
AN - SCOPUS:85066885360
SN - 0032-5473
VL - 95
SP - 378
EP - 381
JO - Postgraduate Medical Journal
JF - Postgraduate Medical Journal
IS - 1125
ER -