Genetically predicted dietary macronutrient intakes and atrial fibrillation risk: a Mendelian randomization study

TL;DR

This study finds that higher protein and carbohydrate intake may reduce the risk of atrial fibrillation, using genetic data to support a causal link.

Contribution

The study uses Mendelian randomization to establish a causal relationship between dietary macronutrient intakes and atrial fibrillation risk.

Findings

Genetically predicted higher carbohydrate intake is associated with a 71% lower risk of atrial fibrillation.

Genetically predicted higher protein intake is associated with a 53% lower risk of atrial fibrillation.

No significant causal relationship was found between fat intake and atrial fibrillation risk.

Abstract

Previous observational investigations have indicated a potential association between relative dietary macronutrient intakes and atrial fibrillation and flutter (AF) risk. In this study, we employed Mendelian Randomization (MR) to evaluate the presence of causality and to elucidate the specific causal relationship.

We employed six, five, and three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as instrumental variables for relative carbohydrate, protein, and fat intake, identified from a genome-wide association study that included 268,922 individuals of European descent. Furthermore, we acquired summary statistics for genome-wide association studies on AF from the FinnGen consortium, which involved 22,068 cases and 116,926 controls. To evaluate the causal estimates, we utilized the random effect inverse variance weighted method (IVW) and several other MR methods, including MR-Egger, weighted median, and MR-PRESSO, to confirm the robustness of our findings.

Our analysis indicates a convincing causal relationship between genetically predicted relative carbohydrate and protein intake and reduced AF risk. Inverse variance weighted analysis results for carbohydrates (OR = 0.29; 95% CI (0.14, 0.59); P < 0.001) and protein (OR = 0.47; 95% CI (0.26, 0.85); P = 0.01) support this association. Our MR analysis did not identify a significant causal relationship between relative fat intake and AF risk.

Our study provides evidence supporting a causal relationship between higher relative protein and carbohydrate intake and a lower risk of atrial fibrillation (AF).

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