AUTHOR=Wang Jinfu , Yang Guan 

TITLE=Exploring the genetic causal relationship between physical activity and migraine in European population based on Mendelian randomization analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2024.1434433

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2024.1434433

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Previous studies have shown a connection between physical activity and migraines, but they don’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship due to potential biases in observational methods.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Utilizing accelerometer-measured physical activity data from a cohort of 377,234 participants in the UK Biobank and information from 599,356 European migraine patients (including 48,975 cases and 550,381 controls) obtained from 24 cohorts, we performed a bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis to investigate the genetic bidirectional causal relationship between accelerometer-measured physical activity and migraines.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Research findings indicated a slight negative genetic correlation between “average acceleration” physical activity (<italic>r<sub>g</sub></italic> = −0.091, <italic>p</italic> = 0.011), overall physical activity (<italic>r<sub>g</sub></italic> = −0.081, <italic>p</italic> = 0.017), and migraine. Nevertheless, no shared genetic components were observed between migraine and “fraction of accelerations &gt; 425 mg” of physical activity (<italic>r<sub>g</sub></italic> = −0.124, <italic>p</italic> = 0.076). The study results also demonstrated a lack of genetic bidirectional causality between accelerometer-measured physical activity and migraine (“average acceleration”, <italic>OR</italic> = 1.002, 95% CI 0.975–1.031, <italic>p</italic> = 0.855, “fraction of accelerations &gt; 425 mg”, <italic>OR</italic> = 1.127, 95% CI 0.802–1.583, <italic>p</italic> = 0.488, overall physical activity, <italic>OR</italic> = 0.961, 95% CI 0.713–1.296, <italic>p</italic> = 0.799), and vice versa. Additionally, this lack of causal association persists even after adjusting for obesity (<italic>OR</italic> = 1.005, <italic>p</italic> = 0.578), education (<italic>OR</italic> = 1.019, <italic>p</italic> = 0.143), and depression (<italic>OR</italic> = 1.005, <italic>p</italic> = 0.847), either separately or simultaneously.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>The Mendelian randomization results based on genetic data do not provide support for a causal association between physical activity and migraine.</p></sec>