Mendelian Randomization Suggests Major Depression Increases Risk of Allergic Rhinitis

Abstract

Background: Observational studies have suggested a potential correlation between major depression (MD) and a higher occurrence of allergic rhinitis (AR). Methods: By employing two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR), this study explored the genetic causality between MD and AR. The summary-level data on MD were derived from the GWAS Catelog. The summary-level GWAS data on AR were extracted from the FinnGen Consortium. The MR analysis was carried out using the inverse-variance weighted (IVW), MR Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode methods. To further identify heterogeneity in the MR results, we applied the Cochrane's Q test. The sensitivity of this association was investigated by using leave-one-out analysis. We used the MR-Egger intercept method and the MR pleiotropy residual sum and outliers (MR-PRESSO) method to assess and address horizontal pleiotropy. Limitation: Stratified analyses for other nations, races, or age ranges could not be performed due to the fact that our MR analysis relied on GWAS data of European ancestry. Results: The Mendelian randomization analysis indicated that major depression is a significant risk factor for allergic rhinitis (P = 0.007, OR = 1.23, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.057-1.428]). No indication of genetic variation heterogeneity was discovered (P > 0.05), and horizontal pleiotropy seemed unlikely to influence causality. Last but not least, the leave-one-out test revealed that this link was strong and consistent. Conclusion: This study genetically predicted major depression increased the risk of Allergic Rhinitis.