Psychological factors as the risk factor of mouth ulcers: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

To examine whether psychological traits (PT) had causal effects on Mouth Ulcers (MU), we applied two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) to genetics association summary statistics of eleven PT and MU. After the adjustment of outlier variants, genetic correlations and multiple testing, well-being (WB) spectrum PT like life satisfactory (odds ratio [OR] = 0.638 per one standard deviation increment of PT score) had protective effects on MU. Reverse WB traits like neuroticism (OR = 1.60) increased the risk of MU. The lack of well-being characteristics may increase the risk of MU, which highlighted the value of preventive oral care for people who have a reverse mental condition.