Potential Causal Relationship between Faster Walking Pace and Reduced Migraine Risk: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Objectives: Prior observational studies have suggested a potential association between the usual walking pace and migraine. In the present study, we utilized Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate the presence of causality and elucidate the specific causal relationship between these two variables. Methods: We performed a genome-wide association study on a population of 499,562 individuals of European ancestry, which revealed 34 genetic variants that exhibited a strong association with the usual walking pace. Additionally, we obtained summary statistics for genome-wide association studies on migraine from several sources. To assess the causal estimates, we employed the random effects inverse variance weighted method (IVW) and several other Mendelian randomizations (MR) methods, including MR-Egger, weighted median, Simple mode, Weighted mode, and MR-PRESSO, to confirm the robustness of our results. Results: Our analysis demonstrated a strong causal association between genetically predicted usual walking pace and a decreased risk of migraine, as determined by inverse variance weighted analysis (odds ratio = 0.33; 95% CI = 0.17 to 0.63; P < 0.001). This association was consistently observed across our investigation's various Mendelian randomization (MR) methods. Conclusions: This study supports a potential causal association between increased walking speed and a decreased risk of migraine.