Assessing the causality between frailty and epilepsy: Bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization: Causal link between frailty and epilepsy
Yan Wang, Ling ChenAbstract
Background:
While a potential connection between epilepsy and frailty has been proposed in past research, the causal nature of this relationship requires additional study.
Objective:
This research was designed to evaluate the bidirectional causality between epilepsy and frailty index (FI) through two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR).
Methods:
In this study, we applied genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to perform forward and reverse MR within a two-sample context to explore the potential bidirectional causality between FI and epilepsy. The main analysis approach was the inverse variance weighted (IVW), used to assess the potential influence of causal relationships and to carry out sensitivity checks.
Results:
MR analysis has revealed a positive correlation between FI and the heightened risk of epilepsy (ORIVW = 1.2126, 95% CI: 1.0143-1.4497, P = 0.0343). This correlation persists in MR analysis that excluded aberrant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)(ORIVW = 1.1862, 95% CI: 1.0236-1.3746, P = 0.0232). Reverse MR analysis corroborated a significant positive relationship between epilepsy and FI (ORIVW =1.0896, 95% CI: 1.0242-1.1592, P = 0.0066), which was confirmed in subsequent replication analysis (ORIVW =1.0975, 95% CI: 1.0532-1.1436, P = 9.69e-06). Sensitivity analysis further supported the hypothesis of a causal link between FI and epilepsy.
Conclusion
There is an evident bidirectional causal relationship between FI and epilepsy.