A recent study published in Medicine used genetic analyses to demonstrate that individuals with a higher body mass index (BMI) may be at an increased risk of developing autoimmune liver diseases, including primary biliary cholangitis (PBC).
“These findings highlight potential therapeutic targets and underscore the need for
tailored prevention strategies in high-BMI populations,” the researchers wrote.
Previous studies have shown that individuals with elevated BMI tend to release high levels of cytokines, a type of molecule that promotes inflammation. However, few studies have examined the causal link between obesity and the risk of autoimmune liver disease, and whether cytokines play a role in the process.
The authors used a technique called Mendelian Randomization in their study, which utilizes genetic markers as a proxy for a particular exposure (BMI, in this case). They also investigated 91 different cytokines.
Read more about PBC causes and risk factors
The study included several autoimmune liver diseases, with 8,021 cases and 16,489 controls in their PBC-specific analyses.
Findings revealed that BMI was significantly associated with risk of PBC when using genetic predictors of BMI. Additionally, PBC was not associated with risk of elevated BMI, ruling out reverse causality.
After adjusting for a number of potential confounding variables such as smoking, alcohol use, anxiety, depression and sleep disorders, the association between BMI and PBC remained.
The study found that none of the 91 cytokines studied mediated the relationship between BMI and PBC. This means that there was no evidence suggesting that elevated BMI led to altered levels of cytokines that subsequently raised the risk of PBC.
The authors note that their data was exclusively collected from European individuals, which could limit their ability to generalize these results to other populations. “Future studies encompassing a broader range of samples and ethnic groups are imperative to validate the current findings,” they wrote.
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