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Causal Association Between Tea Consumption and Gout: A Mendelian Randomization Study

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Abstract

Objective

Evidence from prospective studies on the consumption of tea and risk of gout is conflicting and limited. We aimed to investigate the potential causal effects of tea intake on gout using Mendelian randomization (MR).

Methods

Genome-wide association studies in UK Biobank included 349 376 individuals and successfully discovered single-nucleotide polymorphisms linked to consumption of one cup of tea per day. Summary statistics from the Chronic Kidney Disease Genetics consortium included 13 179 cases and 750 634 controls for gout. Two-sample MR analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between tea consumption and gout risk. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was used for primary analysis, and sensitivity analyses were also conducted to validate the potential causal effect.

Results

In this study, the genetically predicted increase in tea consumption per cup was associated with a lower risk of gout in the IVW method (OR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.82–0.98). Similar results were found in weighted median methods (OR: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.78–1.00), while no significant associations were found in MR-Egger (OR: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.71–1.11), weighted mode (OR: 0.80; 95% CI: 0.65–0.99), and simple mode (OR: 1.01; 95% CI: 0.75–1.36). In addition, no evidence of pleiotropy was detected by MR-Egger regression (P=0.95) or MR-PRESSO analysis (P=0.07).

Conclusion

This study provides evidence for the daily consumption of an extra cup of tea to reduce the risk of gout.

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Author notes

  1. The authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Pudong Hospital, Fudan University Pudong Medical Center, Shanghai, 201399, China

    Qi Wang & Ze-qun Zhang

  2. Human Phenome Institute, Zhangjiang Fudan International Innovation Centre, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Yi-ning Liu & Hui Zhang

  3. Department of Emergency, Shanghai Pudong Hospital, Fudan University Pudong Medical Center, Shanghai, 201399, China

    Xiu-ying Huang

  4. Department of Rheumatology, Shanghai Pudong Hospital, Fudan University Pudong Medical Center, Shanghai, 201399, China

    Wen-ze Xiao

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  1. Qi Wang
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  4. Ze-qun Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiu-ying Huang or Wen-ze Xiao.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

This work was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82102199) and the General Program of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning (No. 202040479).

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Wang, Q., Liu, Yn., Zhang, H. et al. Causal Association Between Tea Consumption and Gout: A Mendelian Randomization Study. CURR MED SCI 43, 947–954 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11596-023-2778-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11596-023-2778-6

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