The causal effect of scoliosis on mental disorders: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Previous studies have investigated the association between scoliosis and mental disorders, but the results have been inconsistent, and the causal relationship remains unclear. In this study, we used two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to explore the causal relationship between scoliosis and mental disorders. We conducted a two-sample MR analysis using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) datasets for scoliosis and mental disorders. Various MR methods, including MR-Egger, weighted median, inverse variance weighting (IVW), simple mode, and weighted mode, were employed to assess the potential causal relationship between scoliosis and 7 mental disorders. Subsequently, we conducted further analysis to ascertain potential pleiotropy and heterogeneity. Additionally, a leave-one-out sensitivity analysis was employed to determine if the causal relationship between exposure and outcome was influenced by any single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). Our analysis revealed no significant causal relationship between scoliosis and anxiety (IVW OR = 1.000, 95% CI = 0.998-1.003, P = .671), depression (IVW OR = 0.999, 95% CI = 0.998-1.000, P = .222), bipolar disorder (IVW OR = 1.017, 95% CI = 0.976-1.060, P = .433), obsessive-compulsive disorder (IVW OR = 0.965, 95% CI = 0.899-1.036, P = .329), schizophrenia (IVW OR = 1.005, 95% CI = 0.985-1.026, P = .624), eating disorders (IVW OR = 1.050, 95% CI = 0.985-1.119, P = .132) and posttraumatic stress disorder (IVW OR = 1.020, 95% CI = 0.963-1.080, P = .500). The MR analysis indicated that scoliosis may not be causally associated with mental disorders.