Exploring the potential causal effects of myopia: A phenome-wide Mendelian randomization association study

Abstract

Myopia is a leading cause of visual impairment worldwide, whose pathogenesis remains poorly understood. We comprehensively performed phenome-wide Mendelian randomization analysis (MR-PheWAS) to explore causal factors and potential therapeutic targets for myopia in participants from the UK Biobank study. The analysis revealed that 55 robust associations (1 disease, 2 employment, 3 cognitive functions, 4 sex-specific factor, 4 mental health, 5 lifestyle and environment, 10 sociodemographic, 12 physical measures and 14 ocular measures/conditions phenotypes) were significantly causally correlated with myopia. The results indicate that myopia may be influenced by several factors, such as serum metabolic traits, fatty acids intake, fat-related indexes, mental health, as well as some previously acknowledged risk factors. Future clinical trials are needed to verify our results.