- Published
- 17 October 2022
- Journal article
Genetically predicted high IGF-1 levels showed protective effects on COVID-19 susceptibility and hospitalization: a Mendelian randomisation study with data from 60 studies across 25 countries
- Authors
- Source
- eLIFE
Full text
Abstract
Background: Epidemiological studies observed gender differences in COVID-19 outcomes, however, whether sex hormone plays a causal in COVID-19 risk remains unclear. This study aimed to examine associations of sex hormone, sex hormones-binding globulin (SHBG), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and COVID-19 risk.
Methods: Two-sample Mendelian randomization (TSMR) study was performed to explore the causal associations between testosterone, estrogen, SHBG, IGF-1, and the risk of COVID-19 (susceptibility, hospitalization, and severity) using genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary level data from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (N=1,348,701). Random-effects inverse variance weighted (IVW) MR approach was used as the primary MR method and the weighted median, MR-Egger, and MR Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier (MR-PRESSO) test were conducted as sensitivity analyses.
Results: Higher genetically predicted IGF-1 levels have nominally significant association with reduced risk of COVID-19 susceptibility and hospitalization. For one standard deviation increase in genetically predicted IGF-1 levels, the odds ratio was 0.77 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61-0.97, p=0.027) for COVID-19 susceptibility, 0.62 (95% CI: 0.25-0.51, p=0.018) for COVID-19 hospitalization, and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.52-1.38, p=0.513) for COVID-19 severity. There was no evidence that testosterone, estrogen, and SHBG are associated with the risk of COVID-19 susceptibility, hospitalization, and severity in either overall or sex-stratified TSMR analysis.
Conclusions: Our study indicated that genetically predicted high IGF-1 levels were associated with decrease the risk of COVID-19 susceptibility and hospitalization, but these associations did not survive the Bonferroni correction of multiple testing. Further studies are needed to validate the findings and explore whether IGF-1 could be a potential intervention target to reduce COVID-19 risk.
Funding: We acknowledge support from NSFC (LR22H260001), CRUK (C31250/A22804), SHLF (Hjärt-Lungfonden, 20210351), VR (Vetenskapsrådet, 2019-00977), and SCI (Cancerfonden).
Rights
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Cite as
Li, X., Zhou, Y., Yuan, S., Zhou, X., Wang, L., Sun, J., Yu, L., Zhu, J., Zhang, H., Yang, N., Dai, S., Song, P., Larsson, S., Theodoratou, E., Zhu, Y. & Li, X. 2022, 'Genetically predicted high IGF-1 levels showed protective effects on COVID-19 susceptibility and hospitalization: a Mendelian randomisation study with data from 60 studies across 25 countries', eLife, 11, article no: e79720. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.79720