Causal Evaluation of Laboratory Markers in Type 2 Diabetes on Cancer and Vascular Diseases Using Various Mendelian Randomization Tools

Multiple studies have demonstrated the effects of type 2 diabetes (T2D) on various human diseases; however, most of these were observational epidemiological studies that suffered from many potential biases including reported confounding and reverse causations. In this article, we investigated whether cancer and vascular disease can be affected by T2D-related traits, including fasting plasma glucose (FPG), 2-h postprandial glucose (2h-PG), and glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels, by using Mendelian randomization (MR). The summary statistics for FPG, 2h-PG, and HbA1c level were obtained through meta-analyses of large-scale genome-wide association studies that included data from 133,010 nondiabetic individuals from collaborating Meta-analysis of Glucose and Insulin Related Traits Consortium studies. Thereafter, based on the statistical assumptions for MR analyses, the most reliable approaches including inverse-variance-weighted (IVW), MR-Egger, MR-Egger with a simulation extrapolation (SIMEX), weighted median, and MR-pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) methods were applied to identify traits affected by FPG, 2h-PG, and HbAlc. We found that coronary artery disease is affected by FPG, as per the IVW [log odds ratio (logOR): 0.21; = 0.012], MR-Egger (SIMEX) (logOR: 0.22; = 0.014), MR-PRESSO (logOR: 0.18; = 0.045), and weighted median (logOR: 0.29; < 0.001) methods but not as per the MR-Egger (logOR: 0.13; = 0.426) approach. Furthermore, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels are affected by HbA1c, as per the IVW [beta (B): 0.23; = 0.015), MR-Egger (B: 0.45; = 0.046), MR-Egger (SIMEX) (B: 0.27; = 0.007), MR-PRESSO (B; 0.14; = 0.010), and the weighted median (B: 0.15; = 0.012] methods. Further studies of the associated biological mechanisms are required to validate and understand the disease-specific differences identified in the TD2-related causal effects of each trait.