Physical activity and risk of epilepsy: A 2-sample Mendelian randomization study

There is currently a lack of evidence from earlier studies about the impact of exercise on the risk of epilepsy. We conducted a 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study to identify the potential causal relationship between physical activity and epilepsy.

We identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with physical activity from a recent genome-wide association study of the UK Biobank. Summary statistics of epilepsy were derived from the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Consortium genome-wide association study (GWAS) database.

We found that self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity increases the incidence of focal epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis(OR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.07-1.30, p = 9 × e-4) and overall acceleration average reduces the risk of childhood absence epilepsy(OR: .99; 95% CI: .98 to 1.00; p = .013).

Different types of epilepsy respond differently to physical activity; it needs further research to explore the physiological mechanism of physical activity and epilepsy.