Association of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease with Risk of Psychiatric Disorders: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

Abstract

Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a prevalent respiratory disorder often accompanied by comorbidities. Although the past few years have witnessed significant scientific progress, the potential relationship between COPD and mental illness remains a subject of debate. Materials and Methods We retrieved COPD data from the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) directory and data on mental illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, panic disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, multiple disabilities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenia, from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach was applied to explore the association between COPD and mental illnesses, with subgroup analyses based on smoking history. Results Our two-sample MR analysis revealed no causal link between overall COPD and the development of common psychiatric disorders. Subgroup analyses based on smoking history showed no causal association between never-smokers with COPD and the occurrence of psychiatric disorders. However, ever-smokers with COPD were associated with a significantly increased risk of ADHD (OR: 2.303, 95% CI: 1.558–3.403, P = 0.001) and a modestly reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (OR: 0.994, 95% CI: 0.988–0.999, P = 0.034). Conclusion COPD patients with a history of smoking face a higher risk of developing ADHD but may experience a slight reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Conversely, there was no observed causal association between COPD and psychiatric disorders among patients who never smoked.

Body mass index, smoking behavior, and depression mediated the effects of schizophrenia on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: trans-ethnic Mendelian-randomization analysis

“…Owing to the random allocation of alleles at birth, MR adeptly addresses confounders and reverse causation, which are prevalent challenges in traditional epidemiological studies ( 10 ). Although previous MR studies have suggested that there is no association between COPD and SCZ, these studies were limited to European populations, and no detailed study of confounding and mediating factors was performed, so the results of MR studies of COPD and SCZ are still questionable ( 11 ). Given the complexity and many confounding factors in the pathogenesis of COPD, this study aimed to explore the potential causal relationship between SCZ and COPD using MR analysis to provide new insights and evidence on this important clinical issue.…”