Association between sleep traits and primary liver cancer: A Mendelian randomization analysis

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundPrimary liver cancer (PLC) is the sixth most frequently occurring cancer, representing one of the top 5 leading causes of cancer‐related mortality worldwide. Recently, researchers have focused more on the impact of living habits on the incidence and development of tumours. This study reports a relationship between sleep traits and PLC.MethodsIn this study, we used published genome‐wide association studies to obtain exposure factors of 6 sleep traits. Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was used to assess the causal relationship between sleep traits and PLC via inverse‐variance weighted (IVW), MR Egger and weighted median. Sensitivity analysis was used to reduce the bias.ResultsOur investigation revealed that there was a negative correlation between sleep duration and the group of liver and bile duct cancer by IVW (p‐value = .042), and this result was similarly observed in the liver cell carcinoma group by Weighted Median (p‐value = .026). In contrast, there was a positive correlation found between napping during the day and primary liver cancer in the cohorts of liver and bile duct cancer (p‐value = .030), liver cell carcinoma (p‐value = .043) and malignant neoplasm of other and unspecified parts of the biliary tract (p‐value = .016) by IVW. Furthermore, our study also revealed a positive correlation between insomnia and malignant neoplasm of the liver and intrahepatic bile ducts by IVW (p‐value = .022).ConclusionsOverall, our study indicates that insomnia and nap during the day may be risk factors of PLC and adequate night sleep might keep us away from PLC.