Association between arterial stiffness index and age-related diseases: A Mendelian randomization study

Arterial stiffness is an emerging indicator of cardiovascular risk, but its causal relationship with a variety of age-related diseases is unclear. Objective is to assess the causal relationship between arterial stiffness index (ASI) and age-related diseases by Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. We obtained instrumental variables associated with age-related diseases from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 484,598 European individuals, and data for ASI were obtained from the UK Biobank GWAS of 127,127 participants. We used the inverse variance-weighted (IVW) as the primary analysis method. In addition, several sensitivity analyses including MR-Egger, weighted-median (WM), MR-PRESSO and Cochran's Q test were performed to test the robustness of the results. Reverse MR analysis were also performed to assess reverse Causal relationships between age-related diseases and ASI. We verified causal relationship between eight age-related diseases and ASI, of which cardiovascular disease, gallbladder disease, Liver, biliary or pancreas problem, hypertension, joint disorder and esophageal disorder elevated ASI. In contrast, hyperthyroidism or thyrotoxicosis and bowel problem may reduce ASI. This MR analysis reveals causal relationships between ASI and several age-related diseases. ASI is expected to be a potential indicator of health conditions for older populations.