Association of blood lipid profiles and asthma: A bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Observational studies and meta-analyses have indicated associations between blood lipid profiles and asthma. However, the causal association is unknown. Therefore, this study investigated the causal relationship between blood lipid profiles and asthma using bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis.

Our analyses were performed using individual data from the Taiwan Biobank and summary statistics from the Asian Genetic Epidemiology Network (AGEN). The causal estimates between all genetic variants, exposures of interest and asthma were calculated using an inverse-variance weighted method based on Taiwan Biobank data from 24,853 participants (mean age, 48.8 years; 49.8% women). Sensitivity analyses, including the weighted median, MR Egger regression, MR-PRESSO, mode-based estimate, contamination mixture methods, and leave-one-out analysis, were applied to validate the results and detect pleiotropy.

In the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) analyses, we found evidence of a significant causal effect of an increased level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol on asthma risk (β_IVW = 1.338, p = 0.001). A genetically decreased level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol was also associated with asthma risk (β_IVW = -0.338, p = 0.01). We also found that an increased level of total cholesterol was associated with an increased risk of asthma (β_IVW = 1.343, p = 0.001). Several sensitivity analyses generated consistent findings. We did not find evidence to support the causality between asthma and blood lipid profiles in either direction.

Our results supported the causal relationship between higher levels of LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol and lower levels of HDL cholesterol with an increased risk of asthma.