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The Relationship Between Body Mass Index and Bone Mineral Density: A Mendelian Randomization Study

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Abstract

Body mass index (BMI) is closely associated with bone mineral density (BMD) in both men and women. However, the relationship between BMI and BMD varies according to different studies. Using SNPs strongly associated with BMI in 336,107 individuals, we conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization study to identify whether and to what extent BMD at different skeletal sites was affected by BMI. A power calculation was also performed. We found that BMI may causally increase lumbar BMD (β 0.087; 95% CI 0.025 to 0.149; P = 0.006) and heel calcaneus BMD (β 0.120; 95% CI 0.082 to 0.157; P = 1 × 10–7). The associations of BMI with forearm and femoral neck BMD were not statistically significant. Our study suggested that higher BMI plays a causal role in increasing BMD and the effects are similar across the skeleton. BMI was causally and positively associated with lumbar and heel calcaneus BMD. However, no statistically significant effects were observed for BMI on femoral neck or forearm BMD.

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Data Availability

All data we used in the study was available at MR-Base platform.

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Acknowledgementss

We thank the developers of MR-Base platform.

Funding

This study was partially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (xyz022019043) and Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Province (2018SF-186).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedics, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No.157, Xiwu Road, Xi’an, 710004, Shaanxi, China

    Jidong Song, Rupeng Zhang, Leifeng Lv, Jialin Liang, Wei Wang, Ruiyu Liu & Xiaoqian Dang

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  1. Jidong Song
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Correspondence to Xiaoqian Dang.

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Jidong Song, Rupeng Zhang, Leifeng Lv, Jialin Liang, Wei Wang, Ruiyu Liu and Xiaoqian Dang have no financial interests to disclose.

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All participants of the original studies included in the GWASs had provided informed consent.

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Song, J., Zhang, R., Lv, L. et al. The Relationship Between Body Mass Index and Bone Mineral Density: A Mendelian Randomization Study. Calcif Tissue Int 107, 440–445 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00736-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00736-w

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