Visceral adipose tissue and risk of diabetic nephropathy: A Mendelian randomization study

Previous observational studies have established a correlation between visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and diabetic nephropathy (DN). However, the causality of this association remains unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the causal association between VAT and DN by employing two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) methods.

The primary MR approach employed was the random-effects inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method. Additionally, we employed alternative methods, including the weighted median (WM) approach, MR-Egger regression, and Mendelian randomization pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO). Sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the robustness of the MR analyses.

Genetically predicted higher VAT mass was causally associated with a higher risk of DN. The results of the MR analyses were as follows: IVW(Beta = 0.948, odds ratio (OR) = 2.581, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 2.100-3.173, p = 1.980e-19), WM (Beta = 1.126, OR = 3.082, 95 % CI = 2.278-4.171, p = 2.997e-13), MR-Egger (Beta = 1.315, OR = 3.724, 95 % CI = 1.981-6.998, p = 6.446e-05), and MR-PRESSO (Beta = 0.914, OR = 2.493, 95 % CI = 2.292-2.695, p = 3.121e-16). No pleiotropy was detected (p = 0.230).

This study provided genetic evidence that higher VAT mass was causally associated with a higher risk of DN.