AUTHOR=Du Rongrong , Zhu Yahui , Chen Peng , Li Mao , Zhang Ying , Huang Xusheng 

TITLE=Causal association between obstructive sleep apnea and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a Mendelian randomization study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=16

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2024.1357070

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2024.1357070

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Background</title><p>Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) had a high prevalence in the population. Whether OSA increases the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is unknown. Our aim was to clarify this issue using two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis in a large cohort.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Methods</title><p>Two-sample MR was used to evaluate the potential causality between OSA and ALS by selecting single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as instrumental variables (IVs) from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was chosen as the primary method to estimate causal association. Weighted median, weighted mode and simple mode methods were used as sensitivity analyses to ensure the robustness of the results.</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>In MR analysis, IVW mode showed genetic liability to OSA was found to be significantly associated with a higher ALS risk (OR, 1.220; 95% confidence interval, 1.031–1.443; <italic>p</italic> = 0.021). No evidence of heterogeneity and horizontal pleiotropy were suggested.</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>We found potential evidence for a causal effect of OSA on an increased risk of ALS.</p></sec>