Physical activity, sedentary behavior and pancreatitis risk: Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

Background Although observational studies have shown that physical activity is a protective factor for acute pancreatitis, the causal associations between PA/ sedentary behavior and acute pancreatitis (AP) and chronic pancreatitis (CP) remain unclear. Methods We used Mendelian randomization as a strategy to assess the causalities between exposures and outcomes by simulating randomized experiments with genetic variation. The collected genetic variants data of physical activity were from UK Biobank, the data on sedentary behavior were also from UK Biobank, and both of them could be found in the GWAS catalog, and the data on AP and CP were from FinnGen. There were three physical activity related activity patterns (moderate to vigorous physical activity [MVPA], accelerometer-based physical activity with average acceleration, [AccAve] and accelerometer-based physical activity with accelerations >425 milli-gravities, [Acc425]) and three sedentary behavior-related lifestyle patterns (Leisure screen time [LST], Sedentary commuting, Sedentary behavior at work). We used inverse variance weighted (IVW), weighted median and MR-Egger for the analysis of Mendelian randomization, followed by sensitivity tests with the Cochran Q test, MR-Egger intercepts analysis and MR-PRESSO. Results A causal relationship was found between LST and acute pancreatitis based on IVW analysis (odds ratios [OR] = 1.38, corresponding 95% confidence intervals [CI] = 1.16–1.64, p = 0.0002) and there were no causal relationships between physical activity/sedentary behavior and chronic pancreatitis. Sensitivity analysis showed no pleiotropy and heterogeneity of the results. Conclusions Results show that reducing LST contributes to the prevention of acute pancreatitis, thereby reducing the health burden associated with it.

Exploring the potential immune cells related to the heredity of acute pancreatitis based on Mendelian randomization study

“…Mendelian randomization (MR) studies select genetic variants related to exposure factors as instrumental variables to eliminate systematic errors, and alleles are randomly assigned according to Mendel's second law at conception, similar to randomization. Controlled trials [4] .MR is often used to verify the impact of exposure factors on disease risk, and helps to deeply describe the genetic factors related to the disease. In recent years, more and more studies have found through MR that the onset of AP may be affected by genetics.…”

“…1 Materials and methods 1.1 Research design MR uses genetic variants that are strongly correlated with exposure factors as instrumental variables to infer the causal relationship between exposure and outcomes. These instrumental variables need to meet three core assumptions:(1) Genetic variation has a strong correlation with exposure; (2) Genetic variation has nothing to do with the confounding factors of the exposure-outcome association; (3) Genetic variation can only affect outcome through exposure and not through other pathways [4] .SNPs with strong correlations were screened as instrumental variables to verify hypothesis (1).MR research follows the genetic law of "random allocation of parental alleles to offspring during meiosis". The effect of genetic variation is less affected by confounding factors such as acquired environment and socioeconomic status, and satis es hypothesis (2).When the instrumental variable affects the outcome through pathways other than "genetic variation-exposure factor-outcome", the genetic variation is considered to have pleiotropic effect, so the pleiotropic effect of SNP is tested to verify the hypothesis (3).…”

The measured healthy lifestyle habits among Saudi university females in Medina, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

“…Stress also affects health outcomes by increasing the risk of cardiac diseases, obesity, and type 2 diabetes [11] which can be explained by the secretion of hormones, peptides, and neurotransmitters that are involved in the body’s response to stress especially if the stress is severe and prolonged. [12] Also, physical inactivity has a role in deteriorating health outcomes, increases the risk of obesity, [13] and poses a significant challenge in Saudi Arabia as its prevalence ranges from 43.3% to 99.5%, among the Saudi population. [14]…”