AUTHOR=Jia Min , Chen He-Jia , Jia Ling-Mei , Chen Ya-Li 

TITLE=Genetic Predisposition to Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Relation to Ten Cardiovascular Conditions: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.796165

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2022.796165

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=Background: The long-term health consequences of COVID-19 remain largely unclear. The aim of this study was to apply the Mendelian randomization (MR) design to estimate the causal associations between COVID-19 and 10 cardiovascular conditions.
Methods: Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with COVID-19 (published in 2020) were used as instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect of COVID-19 on 10 cardiovascular conditions (obtained from FinnGen project, which launched in Finland in the autumn of 2017). The random-effects inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was conducted for the main analyses with a complementary analysis of the weighted median and MR-Egger approaches.
Results: In the IVW analysis, genetically predicted COVID-19 was suggestively associated with major coronary heart disease event (OR 1.081; 95% CI 1.007–1.160; P=0.045) and heart failure (OR 1.049; 95% CI 1.001–1.100; P=0.045) with similar estimates in weighted median regressions. No directional pleiotropic effects were observed in both funnel plots and MR-Egger intercepts.
Conclusions/interpretation: Our findings provide direct evidence that patients infected with COVID-19 are causally associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, especially for major coronary heart disease event and heart failure.