Vitamin D levels and five cardiovascular diseases: A Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, whilst vitamin D levels have been found to be associated with cardiovascular disease. To investigate the causal relationship between vitamin D levels and five cardiovascular diseases, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was carried out using data on vitamin D levels (sample size = 79366), angina pectoris (18168 cases and 187840 controls), coronary heart disease (21012 cases and 197780 controls), lacunar stroke (6030 cases and 248929 controls), heart attack (10693 cases and 451187 controls), and hypertension (55917 cases and 162837 controls), with a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis being subsequently performed. Six single nucleotide polymorphisms were used as instrumental variables (IVs). In addition, sensitivity analysis was performed to verify the reliability of the MR results here. The results showed a causal relationship between vitamin D levels and angina pectoris (OR = 0.51, 95 % CI: 0.28–0.93, P = 0.03), coronary heart disease (OR = 0.53, 95 % CI: 0.34–0.81, P = 0.004), and lacunar stroke (OR = 0.41, 95 % CI: 0.20–0.86, P = 0.02), but no causal relationship with heart attacks (OR = 1.00, 95 % CI: 0.99–1.01, P = 0.76) or hypertension (OR = 0.99, 95 % CI: 0.73–1.34, P = 0.94). Additionally, our IVs data showed no heterogeneity or pleiotropy, whilst the results of the MR analysis were reliable. This study contributes to the prevention and treatment of these five cardiovascular diseases.