Mendelian Randomization Study of Whole Blood Viscosity and Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

AbstractAimsAssociation between whole blood viscosity (WBV) and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been reported. However, the causal relationship between WBV and CVD remains not thoroughly investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate the causal relation between WBV and CVD.MethodsMendelian randomization was employed to investigate the casual relationship between WBV and CVD. Calculated WBV, derived polygenic risk score (PRS) for WBV, and medical records from 378,210 individuals participating in the UK biobank study were analyzed.ResultsThe means of calculated WBVs were 16.9 (standard deviation: 0.8) and 55.1 (standard deviation: 17.2) for high shear rate (HSR) and low shear rate (LSR), respectively. 37,859 (10.0%) major cardiovascular event (MACE) consisted of 23,894 (6.3%) cases of myocardial infarction (MI), 9,245 (2.4%) cases of ischemic stroke, 10,377 (2.7%) cases of revascularization, and 5,703 (1.5%) cases of Coronary heart disease-related death. WBVs of individuals with PRS above median were significantly higher than the group that were below median for both low shear rate (P<0.001) and high shear rate (P<0.001). The odd ratios (95% confidence intervals) for MACE in the higher WBV group were 1.22 (1.19 - 1.25) and 1.14 (1.12 - 1.16), for HSR and LSR, respectively. The higher PRS group was insignificant with all outcomes, for both HSR and LSR.ConclusionsThe Mendelian randomization analysis conducted in this study does not support a causal relationship between calculated WBV and CVD.