Causal relationship between obesity and spinal stenosis: two-sample Mendelian randomisation

Abstract

Abstract Objective To investigate the causal relationship between obesity and spinal stenosis using Mendelian randomisation (MR). Methods Genetic loci independently associated with obesity and spinal stenosis in people of European origin were selected as instrumental variables using pooled data from large-scale genomewide association studies (GWAS). Three MR analyses, MR-Egger, Weighted median and Inverse Variance Weighting (IVW), were used to investigate the causal relationship between obesity and spinal stenosis. Heterogeneity and multiplicity tests were performed, and sensitivity analyses were performed using the "leave-one-out" method to explore the robustness of the results. Results The IVW results showed an OR (95% CI) of 1.12 (1.03–1.22), p = 0.010, indicating a causal relationship between obesity and the occurrence of spinal stenosis. And no heterogeneity and multiplicity were found by the test and sensitivity analysis also showed robust results. Conclusion In this study, genetic data were analysed and explored using two-sample MR analysis, and the results showed that there is a causal relationship between obesity and the occurrence of spinal stenosis, and that there is a need to include more samples for the study.