Association between alcohol and bone mineral density in a Mendelian randomization study: the Dong-gu study

Many previous studies have reported a positive relationship between alcohol and bone mineral density (BMD). However, the causality between alcohol and BMD has not been fully evaluated.

This study enrolled 8892 participants from the Dong-gu study. Mendelian randomization (MR) using two-stage least-squared regression was used to evaluate the association between the genetically predicted amount of alcohol consumption per day and BMD. The aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) rs671 polymorphism was used as instrumental variables for alcohol consumption. Age, smoking history, and BMI were adjusted in the multivariate model.

Self-reported alcohol consumption was positively related to total hip and lumbar spine BMD in both sexes. In multivariate Mendelian randomization analysis, the genetically predicted amount of alcohol consumption was positively associated with both total hip and lumbar spine BMD in men. Total hip BMD and lumbar spine BMD increased by 0.004 g/cm² (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.002-0.007) and 0.007 g/cm² (95% CI 0.004-0.011) with doubling of alcohol consumption. However, in women, genetically predicted alcohol consumption was not significantly associated with BMD.

In our MR study, genetically predicted alcohol consumption was positively associated with BMD in men. This result suggests that the association between alcohol consumption and BMD is causal.