Causal relationship between vitamin B12 deficiency anemia and risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus by Mendelian randomization analysis
Objective To determine whether vitamin B12(VitB12)deficiency anemia is causally associated with type 1 diabetes(T1D)by Mendelian randomization analysis(MR).Methods From genome-wide association studies,the independent single nucleotide pol-ymorphisms(SNP)closely associated with T1D and VitB12 deficiency anemia were selected as instrumental variables.Inverse-variance weighting(IVW)was used for MR analysis,and additional weighted median(WME),MR-Egger,and weighted mode methods were used to validate the results.Sensitivity analyses of instrumental variables were performed to ensure the robustness of the analysis.Results Total of 10 SNPs strongly associated with VitB12 deficiency anemia were obtained as instrumental variables.I VW(OR=2.706,95%CI 1.357-5.396,P<0.05),WME(OR=5.179,95%CI 2.678-10.015,P<0.05),MR-Egger(OR=13.088,95%CI2.230-76.802,P<0.05),and weighted mode(OR=5.699,95%CI 2.807~11.570,P<0.05)results showed that the gene prediction of VitB12 deficiency anemia was significantly associated with the risk of T1D.Meanwhile the reverse MR study showed that T1D was not the cause of VitB12 deficiency anemia.Sensitivity analysis supported the reliability of the study findings.Conclusion This study sug-gests that VitB12 deficiency anemia is a risk factor for T1D,and there is a positive causal correlation between them.