# Causal Relationship Between Anxiety Disorders and Cancers: A Bidirectional Two‐Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

## TL;DR

This study used genetic data to find no causal link between anxiety disorders and common cancers.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is the use of bidirectional Mendelian randomization to assess causality between anxiety and cancer.

## Key findings

- No causal relationship was found between anxiety disorders and common cancers.
- Reverse MR analysis also showed no significant link from cancer to anxiety disorders.
- Genetic evidence suggests anxiety does not increase cancer risk.

## Abstract

Anxiety disorders are common psychiatric problems that often accompany cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers.

We utilized publicly available summary statistics from large‐scale genome‐wide association studies, selecting genetic variant loci associated with anxiety disorders and common cancers as instrumental variables (IVs). These IVs underwent quality control according to three underlying assumptions. The results of the Mendelian randomization (MR) study were analyzed using the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method, along with MR‐Egger regression and weighted median estimation (WME) methods, to evaluate the bidirectional causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers. Additionally, we conducted heterogeneity and multivariate tests to validate the IVW results.

The bidirectional Mendelian randomization study revealed no positive causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers. From a genetic perspective, the IVW analysis demonstrated that anxiety disorders are not associated with an increased risk of developing these common cancers (p > 0.05). Reverse MR analysis further revealed no significant causal relationship between common cancers and anxiety disorders (p > 0.05).

MR analysis results demonstrated no significant causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers.

A Mendelian randomization study was conducted to analyze the causal relationship between anxiety disorders and common cancers based on its three core assumptions. The results did not find an association between the two.