Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology (Feb 2024)

Causal Effects of Lipids-Related Metabolites on Androgenic Alopecia: A Mendelian Randomization Study

  • Bi L,
  • Wang C,
  • Du Y,
  • Lu C,
  • Zhao M,
  • Ding Y,
  • Sun W,
  • Fan W

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 17
pp. 409 – 416

Abstract

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Lingbo Bi,* Chaofan Wang,* Yimei Du,* Changpei Lu, Min Zhao, Yunbu Ding, Weiling Sun, Weixin Fan Department of Dermatology, Jiangsu Province Hospital and Nanjing Medical University First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Weixin Fan; Weiling Sun, Department of Dermatology, Jiangsu Province Hospital and Nanjing Medical University First Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-13327805737 ; +86-13813955963, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: To investigate whether increased levels of lipids-related metabolites (LRMs) result in androgenic alopecia (AGA).Patients and Methods: A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was designed, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) respectively related to nine LRMs were selected from the genome-wide association study (GWAS) dataset. An MR analysis was performed to assess the causal association between LRMs and AGA.Results: Through the fixed-effect inverse variance weighting (IVW) method, MR analysis indicated that Apolipoprotein B (ApoB), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) had a causal relationship with AGA. No obvious heterogeneity or pleiotropy was observed.Conclusion: The risk of AGA increases significantly when the serum levels of ApoB, LDL, and VLDL increase. This causal relationship is solid and free of interference from confounding factors.Keywords: androgenic alopecia, apolipoprotein B, VLDL, LDL

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