INTRODUCTION

Atopic dermatitis (AD) has been linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD) in population-based studies, however, their causal relationship is still unclear.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate the causal association of AD with risk of cardiovascular outcomes using a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.

METHODS

We extracted summary-level data for AD, stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease (CAD), myocardial infarction, angina pectoris from published, nonoverlapping genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) method was used as the primary analysis. Alternative methods, including weighted median, MR Egger, MR-Pleiotropy Residual Sum and Outlier, weighted mode, and leave-out analysis, were performed to examine potential pleiotropy.

RESULTS

Thirteen SNPs (13,287 cases and 41,345 controls) were selected as instrumental variables (IVs). No associations of AD with risks of stroke (odds ratio [OR] = 1.03, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.97-1.09, P = 0.3630), heart failure (OR = 1.04, 95%CI: 0.99-1.09, P= 0.119), coronary artery disease (OR = 1.00, 95%CI: 0.96-1.05, P = 0.988), myocardial infarction (OR = 1.00, 95%CI: 1.00-1.00, P = 0.322), and angina pectoris (OR = 1.00, 95%CI: 1.00-1.00, P = 0.369) was found. No significant effect of pleiotropy was detected.

CONCLUSIONS

This MR study does not support a causal effect of AD on stroke, heart failure, CAD, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris.