Department of Urology, Juntendo University, Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Advanced Informatics for Genetic Diseases, Juntendo University, Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2024 Apr 26;15:1264410. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2024.1264410. eCollection 2024.
Low testosterone levels in men have been linked to decreased physical and mental function, as well as a reduced quality of life. Previous prospective observational studies have suggested an association between testosterone and sleep traits, but the causality of this relationship remains unclear. We aimed to explore the potential causal link between genetically determined sleep traits and testosterone levels in men using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis from the UK Biobank dataset. Our exposures were genetic variants associated with sleep traits (chronotype and sleep duration), whereas our outcomes were traits of sex steroid hormones (total testosterone, TT; bioavailable testosterone, BAT; and sex hormone-binding globulin, SHBG). We employed inverse variance weighted (IVW) and weighted median (WM) methods to assess the causal associations. The IVW method offers a robust estimate of causality, whereas the WM method provides reliable results even when some genetic variants are invalid instruments. Our main analysis involving sex steroid hormones and chronotype identified 155 chronotype-related variants. The primary findings from the analysis, which used chronotype as the exposure and sex steroid hormones as the outcomes, showed that a genetically predicted chronotype score was significantly associated with an increased levels of TT (association coefficient β, 0.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.02-0.14; = 0.008) and BAT (β, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.02-0.14; = 0.007), whereas there was no significant association with SHBG (β, 0.01; 95% CI, -0.02-0.03; = 0.64). Meanwhile, MR analysis of sex steroid hormones and sleep duration was performed, and 69 variants associated with sleep duration were extracted. There were no significant association between sleep duration and sex steroid hormones (TT, = 0.91; BAT, = 0.82; and SHBG, = 0.95). Our data support a causal association between chronotype and circulating testosterone levels in men. These findings underscore a potential causal relationship between chronotype and testosterone levels in men, suggesting that lifestyle adjustments are crucial for men's health. Recognizing factors that influence testosterone is essential. One limitation of this study is the use of one-sample MR, which can introduce potential bias due to non-independence of genetic associations for exposure and outcome. In conclusion, our findings indicate that a morning preference is correlated with circulating testosterone levels, emphasizing the potential impact of lifestyle habits on testosterone levels in men.
男性的睾丸激素水平降低与身体和精神功能下降以及生活质量降低有关。先前的前瞻性观察研究表明,睾丸激素与睡眠特征之间存在关联,但这种关系的因果关系尚不清楚。我们旨在使用英国生物库数据集的孟德尔随机化 (MR) 分析来探索遗传确定的睡眠特征与男性睾丸激素水平之间的潜在因果联系。我们的暴露因素是与睡眠特征(昼夜节律和睡眠时间)相关的遗传变异,而我们的结果是性激素激素的特征(总睾丸激素、TT;生物可利用的睾丸激素、BAT;和性激素结合球蛋白、SHBG)。我们采用逆方差加权(IVW)和加权中位数(WM)方法来评估因果关系。IVW 方法提供了因果关系的稳健估计,而 WM 方法即使一些遗传变异是无效工具,也能提供可靠的结果。我们的主要分析涉及性激素和昼夜节律,确定了 155 个与昼夜节律相关的变异。分析结果表明,从分析中,以昼夜节律为暴露因素,以性激素为结果,一个遗传预测的昼夜节律评分与 TT(关联系数 β,0.08;95%置信区间 [CI],0.02-0.14; = 0.008)和 BAT(β,0.08;95% CI,0.02-0.14; = 0.007)水平升高显著相关,而与 SHBG(β,0.01;95% CI,-0.02-0.03; = 0.64)无显著关联。同时,还进行了性激素与睡眠时间的 MR 分析,并提取了 69 个与睡眠时间相关的变异。睡眠时间与性激素之间没有显著关联(TT, = 0.91;BAT, = 0.82;SHBG, = 0.95)。我们的数据支持男性昼夜节律与循环睾丸激素水平之间存在因果关系。这些发现强调了男性昼夜节律与睾丸激素水平之间存在潜在的因果关系,表明生活方式调整对男性健康至关重要。认识影响睾丸激素的因素至关重要。本研究的一个局限性是使用单样本 MR,由于暴露和结果的遗传关联不独立,这可能会引入潜在的偏倚。总之,我们的研究结果表明,晨型偏好与循环睾丸激素水平相关,强调了生活习惯对男性睾丸激素水平的潜在影响。