Shared genetic etiology and causality between body fat percentage and cardiovascular diseases: a large-scale genome-wide cross-trait analysis

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Background Accumulating evidences have suggested that high body fat percentage (BF%) often occurs in parallel with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), implying a common etiology between them. However, the shared genetic etiology underlying BF% and CVDs remains unclear. Methods Using large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) data, we investigated shared genetics between BF% (N = 100,716) and 10 CVD-related traits (n = 6968-977,323) with linkage disequilibrium score regression, multi-trait analysis of GWAS, and transcriptome-wide association analysis, and evaluated causal associations using Mendelian randomization. Results We found strong positive genetic correlations between BF% and heart failure (HF) (Rg = 0.47, P = 1.27 × 10 - 22 ) and coronary artery disease (CAD) (Rg = 0.22, P = 3.26 × 10 - 07 ). We identified 5 loci and 32 gene-tissue pairs shared between BF% and HF, as well as 16 loci and 28 gene-tissue pairs shared between BF% and CAD. The loci were enriched in blood vessels and brain tissues, while the gene-tissue pairs were enriched in the nervous, cardiovascular, and exo-/endocrine system. In addition, we observed that BF% was causally related with a higher risk of HF (odds ratio 1.63 per 1-SD increase in BF%, P = 4.16 × 10-04) using a MR approach. Conclusions Our findings suggest that BF% and CVDs have shared genetic etiology and targeted reduction of BF% may impro

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.