Causal Relationship Between Blood Triglyceride Levels and Age Spots: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis

This study examined the association between blood triglyceride (TG) levels (TLIB) and age spots (AS).

We acquired data from the Mendelian randomization (MR) Base database and evaluated the causal association between TLIB and AS.

From genome-wide association studies, we selected 33 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were significantly associated with TLIB and AS. The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) and weighted median estimation methods showed that TLIB had a protective effect on AS (IVW: β=-0.214, P=0.019, odds ratio [OR]=0.807, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.674-0.966; weighted median: β=-0.277, P=0.032, OR=0.758, 95% CI=0.589-0.977). However, the MR-Egger analysis suggested no causal association (β=-0.234, P=0.085, OR=0.792, 95% CI=0.612-1.024). The greater precision of the weighted median estimation and IVW suggests that our results support a potential causal association between TLIB and AS.

The MR analysis proved that TLIB has a protective effect against AS and that triglycerides have potential preventive and therapeutic effects against AS. However, the specific dose-effect relationship requires further study.