The causal effects of leisure screen time on irritable bowel syndrome risk from a Mendelian randomization study

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 13216
• Main Authors: Lu, Liesheng, Liu, Changqin, Liu, Kunpeng, Shi, Chenzhang, Liu, Zhongchen, Jiang, Xun, Wang, Feng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 14.08.2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/208; 692/4020; 692/499; Genome-wide association studies; Genomes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Intestine; Irritable bowel syndrome; Leisure; multidisciplinary; Pleiotropy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Screen time; Sedentary behavior; Single-nucleotide polymorphism
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-40153-1

Associations between leisure sedentary behavior (especially leisure screen time, LST) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have been reported, but causality is unclear. Here, the two-sample Mendelian randomization was performed to investigate the causal association between LST and IBS. Two recently published genome-wide association studies (GWASs) including a total of 1,190,502 people from Europe were used as our data source. Inverse variance weighting (OR = 1.120, 95% CI 1.029–1.219) and weighted median (OR = 1.112, 95% CI 1.000–1.236) analyses revealed a causal effect between LST and IBS. There was no evidence of pleiotropy in the sensitive analysis (MR-Egger, p = 0.139). After removing potentially confounding single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), similar results were found using inverse variance weighting (OR = 1.131, 95% CI 1.025–1.248) and weighted median (OR = 1.151, 95% CI 1.020–1.299), as well as in the validation analyses using inverse variance weighting (OR = 1.287, 95% CI 0.996–1.662). This study provided support for a possible causal relationship between leisure screen time and IBS.