Childhood obesity and risk of inflammatory bowel disease in adulthood: A Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

It is well-known that childhood obesity is associated with various adult gastrointestinal diseases, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) being no exception. However, previous epidemiological observational studies, while reporting a correlation between the 2, have left the question of a causal relationship inconclusive. This study aims to use a 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to assess the causal relationship between childhood obesity and IBD as well as its subtypes (ulcerative colitis [UC] and Crohn disease [CD]). Data on childhood obesity, IBD, and its subtypes (UC and CD) were sourced from IEU OpenGWAS (https://gwas.mrcieu.ac.uk/datasets/ieu-a-1096/) and IIBDGC (https://www.ibdgenetics.org/). The data were analyzed using the inverse variance weighted (IVW), MR-Egger, weighted median, simple mode, and weighted mode methods. The MR analysis indicates no causal relationship between childhood obesity and IBD or its subtypes (UC and CD). The consistency of the results across the IVW, MR-Egger, weighted median, simple mode, and weighted mode methods suggests the reliability of the findings. We found that childhood obesity is not causally related to IBD or its subtypes (UC and CD). This differs from prior studies. The observed discrepancies may be due to common biological or environmental confounding factors.