Effects of Selenium on Chronic Kidney Disease: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

BACKGROUND

Previous observational studies have shown that there is a controversial association between selenium levels and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Our aim was to assess the causal relationship between selenium levels and CKD using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

METHODS

We used the two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) method to analyze the causal role of selenium levels on CKD risk. The variants associated with selenium levels were extracted from a large genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis of circulating selenium levels ( = 5477) and toenail selenium levels ( = 4162) in the European population. Outcome data were from the largest GWAS meta-analysis of European-ancestry participants for kidney function to date. Inverse variance weighted (IVW) method was used as the main analysis and a series of sensitivity analyses were carried out to detect potential violations of MR assumptions.

RESULTS

The MR analysis results indicate that the genetically predicted selenium levels were associated with decreased estimated glomerular filtration (eGFR) (effect = -0.0042, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.0053-0.0031, = 2.186 × 10) and increased blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (effect = 0.0029, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.0006-0.0052, = 0.0136) with no pleiotropy detected.

CONCLUSIONS

The MR study indicated that an increased level of selenium is a causative factor for kidney function impairment.