Abstract
Background: While existing research has established a link between dietary habits and the incidence of intracranial aneurysms, the application of Mendelian randomization to explore this association remains largely uncharted.
Methods: n our study, we analyzed a wide array of dietary factors using data from the IEU Open GWAS project, which included meat varieties (oily fish, pork, lamb/mutton, beef and poultry), vegetarian foods (both cooked and raw vegetables, along with fresh and dried fruits), cereal and the frequency of alcohol intake. We included pooled intracranial aneurysm GWAS data from a comprehensive dataset of 7,495 cases as well as 71,934 controls. In MR analysis, we employed multiple Mendelian randomization techniques such as weighted median, MR-Egger, and Inverse Variance Weighted methods and rigorously controlled the false discovery rates through the Bonferroni correction across ten dietary exposures. The study's robustness was further ensured by assessing heterogeneity and pleiotropy using Cochran's Q test and MR-Egger method, supplemented by leave-one-out and MR-PRESSO analyses, thus solidifying the validity of our findings.
Results: Our analysis identified a significant association between cooked vegetables (OR: 2.296; 95% CI: 0.726 ~ 3.867; p = 0.0042) and an elevated risk of intracranial aneurysms. Besides, the initial analysis suggested a statistically significant association between the dried fruit (OR: 0.385; 95%CI: -1.842 ~ -0.067; p= 0.0350), frequency of alcohol intake (OR: 1.419; 95% CI: 0.039 ~ 0.661; p = 0.0276) and the risk of intracranial aneurysms. However, this significance was not sustained after applying the Bonferroni correction for multiple testing, indicating a need for cautious interpretation despite the initially promising findings. No causal links were found between intracranial aneurysms and other dietary intakes investigated in this study.
Conclusion: This study identified a clear causal link between cooked vegetable intake and an increased risk of intracranial aneurysm, while suggesting a potential connection between the frequency of alcohol intake and the elevated risk, although this association did not reach statistical significance after multiple testing corrections. Conversely, no significant associations were observed between the risk of intracranial aneurysm and the consumption of various meats, cheese, and other fruits and vegetables.