Identifying causal associations between early sexual intercourse or number of sexual partners and major depressive disorders: A bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis

Early sexual activity lowers the incidence of intracranial aneurysm: a Mendelian randomization investigation

Objective

Investigate the potential correlation between the age of initial sexual contact, the lifetime accumulation of sexual partners, and the occurrence of intracranial aneurysm (IA) employing a two-sample Mendelian randomization approach.

Methods

This research aims to elucidate the causal relationship between intracranial aneurysm (IA) and sexual variables. Two distinct sexual variables, specifically the age had first sexual intercourse (n = 406,457) and the lifetime number of sexual partners (n = 378,882), were employed as representative parameters in a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study. Outcome data from 23 cohorts, comprising 5,140 cases and 71,934 controls, were gathered through genome-wide association studies (GWAS). To bolster analytical rigor, five distinct methodologies were applied, encompassing MR-Egger technique, weighted median, inverse variance weighted, simple modeling, and weighted modeling.

Results

Our investigation unveiled a causal relationship between the age first had sexual intercourse and the occurrence of intracranial aneurysm (IA), employing the Inverse Variance Weighted (IVW) approach [Odds Ratio (OR): 0.609, p-value: 5.684E-04, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.459-0.807]. This association was notably significant in the context of unruptured intracranial aneurysms (uIA) using the IVW approach (OR: 0.392, p-value: 6.414E-05, 95% CI: 0.248-0.621). Conversely, our findings did not reveal any discernible link between the lifetime number of sexual partners and the occurrence of IA (IA group: OR: 1.346, p-value: 0.415, 95% CI: 0.659-2.749; SAH group: OR: 1.042, p-value: 0.943, 95% CI: 0.338-3.209; uIA group: OR: 1.990, p-value: 0.273, 95% CI: 0.581-6.814).

Conclusion

The two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) study presented herein provides evidence supporting a correlation between the age of initial engagement in sexual activity and the occurrence of intracranial aneurysm (IA), with a noteworthy emphasis on unruptured intracranial aneurysms (uIA). Nevertheless, our investigation failed to establish a definitive association between IA and the cumulative lifetime number of sexual partners.

Mendelian randomization analyses for the causal relationship between early age at first sexual intercourse, early age at first live birth, and postpartum depression in pregnant women

Introduction

There are insufficient epidemiological studies on the impact of age at first sexual intercourse (AFS) and age at first live birth (AFB) on postpartum depression (PPD) in pregnant women, and the conclusions of these studies are inconsistent.

Methods

We performed a Mendelian randomization (MR) study to determine the causal relationship between AFS or AFB and the risk of PPD. The summary data were extracted from genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary datasets. We selected the instrumental variables according to the P value of exposure-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (P<5 ×10-9 for AFS and P<5 ×10-8 for AFB) and estimated the linkage disequilibrium using the clump parameter (10,000 kb, r2 < 0.001). Single nucleotide polymorphisms were considered instrumental variables that were significantly associated with exposure factors without linkage disequilibrium. The F-statistics of the instrumental variables should all be larger than 10. A random-effects model of IVW was constructed as the main method in our study.

Results and discussion

MR studies based on GWAS data revealed that both AFS (OR = 0.4, P <0.001) and AFB (OR = 0.38, P <0.001) were negatively correlated with the risk of PPD. Early AFS and early AFB should be studied as possible risk factors for PPD in the future. Public health departments should attach importance to sex education for young girls. The results of our TSMR should be verified by high-quality prospective epidemiological studies in the future.

Identifying causal associations between women's reproductive traits and risk of schizophrenia: a multivariate validated two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis

BACKGROUND

A significant association between women's reproductive traits and the risk of schizophrenia (SCZ) has been discovered, but the causalities remain unclear. We designed a two-sample univariate Mendelian randomization (MR) study using female-specific SNPs collected from a large-scale genome-wide association study as a genetic tool to explore the causal effect of female reproductive traits on the risk of SCZ, and conducted a multivariate MR study to re-validate the above findings.

METHODS

From extensive genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of people with European ancestry (n = 176,881 to 418,758 individuals), summary-level data on five female reproductive variables were extracted. Summary-level information on SCZ was taken from a GWAS meta-analysis involving 320,404 people with European ancestry. The inverse variance weighting estimations for both univariable MR (UVMR) and multivariable MR (MVMR) were presented as the primary results. MR-Egger, weighted median, simple mode, and weighted mode regression methods for UVMR, and MVMR-Egger, MVMR-Lasso, and MVMR-median methods for MVMR were used for sensitivity analyses.

RESULTS

The UVMR produced compelling proof for a connection between genetically predicted later age at first sexual intercourse (AFS) (OR, 0.632; 95% CI, 0.512-0.777; P < 0.01) and decreased SCZ risk. Pleiotropy analysis of the AFS-SCZ association confirmed the robustness of the MR results (P > 0.05). Consistent, substantial causal effects of AFS (OR, 0.592; 95%CI, 0.407-0.862; P < 0.01) on the risk of SCZ were demonstrated after adjusting for body mass index, years of schooling, and smoking initiation using MVMR.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings provide convincing evidence that early AFS is a risk factor for SCZ. SCZ risk may be decreased by raising awareness of reproductive healthcare for women.

Causal effects of potential risk factors on postpartum depression: a Mendelian randomization study

Background

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a type of depressive episode related to parents after childbirth, which causes a variety of symptoms not only for parents but also affects the development of children. The causal relationship between potential risk factors and PPD remains comprehensively elucidated.

Methods

Linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) analysis was conducted to screen the heritability of each instrumental variant (IV) and to calculate the genetic correlations between effective causal factors and PPD. To search for the causal effect of multiple potential risk factors on the incidence of PPD, random effects of the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method were applied. Sensitivity analyses, including weighted median, MR-Egger regression, Cochrane's Q test, and MR Pleiotropy Residual Sum and Outlier (MR-PRESSO), were performed to detect potential Mendelian randomization (MR) assumption violations. Multivariable MR (MVMR) was conducted to control potential multicollinearity.

Results

A total of 40 potential risk factors were investigated in this study. LDSC regression analysis reported a significant genetic correlation of potential traits with PPD. MR analysis showed that higher body mass index (BMI) (Benjamini and Hochberg (BH) corrected p = 0.05), major depression (MD) (BH corrected p = 5.04E-19), and schizophrenia (SCZ) (BH corrected p = 1.64E-05) were associated with the increased risk of PPD, whereas increased age at first birth (BH corrected p = 2.11E-04), older age at first sexual intercourse (BH corrected p = 3.02E-15), increased average total household income before tax (BH corrected p = 4.57E-02), and increased years of schooling (BH corrected p = 1.47E-11) led to a decreased probability of PPD. MVMR analysis suggested that MD (p = 3.25E-08) and older age at first birth (p = 8.18E-04) were still associated with an increased risk of PPD.

Conclusion

In our MR study, we found multiple risk factors, including MD and younger age at first birth, to be deleterious causal risk factors for PPD.