1. Association of education attainment and risk of connective tissue diseases.
- Author
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Zeng, Yuanyuan, Yang, Xiaolan, Tao, Shengda, and Lei, Ling
- Subjects
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CONNECTIVE tissue diseases , *SYSTEMIC lupus erythematosus , *GENOME-wide association studies , *SYSTEMIC scleroderma , *DERMATOMYOSITIS - Abstract
Objective: We employed two‐sample Mendelian randomization (MR) to assess the genetic causal relationship between educational attainment (EA) and risk of five common connective tissue diseases (CTDs). Methods: Educational attainment (self‐reported at age ≥30 years) was obtained from a meta‐analysis of years of schooling in 766 345 participants of European ancestry from genome‐wide association studies (GWAS). A total of 1265 signals associated with EA were identified. Genetic data for five CTDs [rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), polymyositis (PM), and dermatomyositis (DM)] were obtained from the FinnGen consortium. Two‐sample MR analyses were performed separately for EA and the five CTDs. Results: We found a negative causal relationship between EA and RA (ORIVW = 0.627, 95% CI = 0.537–0.732, p <.001), and SLE (ORIVW = 0.341, 95% CI = 0.123–0.944, p =.038). There were no genetic causal association between EA and SSc (ORIVW = 0.647, 95% CI = 0.351–1.195, p =.164), PM (ORIVW = 0.938, 95% CI = 0.320–2.746, p =.907), or DM (ORIVW = 0.754, 95% CI = 0.351–1.619, p =.468). None of the analyses revealed any horizontal pleiotropy or heterogeneity. Conclusion: Our findings indicated a potential causal association between EA and RA, SLE, emphasizing the need for further investigation and potential integration of EA into clinical practice to enhance treatment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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