ArticlePsychological medicine2015
Do genetic risk scores for body mass index predict risk of phobic anxiety? Evidence for a shared genetic risk factor.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Telomere length and health outcomes: A two-sample genetic instrumental variables analysis.Experimental gerontology · 2016Pooled it
- Investigating the causal effects of childhood and adulthood adiposity on later life mental health outcome: a Mendelian randomization study.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Mendelian Randomization: A Review of Methods for the Prevention, Assessment, and Discussion of Pleiotropy in Studies Using the Fat Mass and Obesity-Associated Gene as an Instrument for Adiposity.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Review
- The contribution of tissue-grouped BMI-associated gene sets to cardiometabolic-disease risk: a Mendelian randomization study.International journal of epidemiology · 2020Article
- Searching for the causal effects of body mass index in over 300 000 participants in UK Biobank, using Mendelian randomization.PLoS genetics · 2019Article
- The role of allelic variation in estrogen receptor genes and major depression in the Nurses Health Study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2015Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundObesity and anxiety are often linked but the direction of effects is not clear.
methodUsing genetic instrumental variable (IV) analyses in 5911 female participants from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS, initiated 1976) and 3697 male participants from the Health Professional Follow-up Study (HPFS, initiated 1986), we aimed to determine whether obesity increases symptoms of phobic anxiety. As instrumental variables we used the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene, the melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) gene and a genetic risk score (GRS) based on 32 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that significantly predict body mass index (BMI). 'Functional' GRSs corresponding with specific biological pathways that shape BMI (adipogenesis, appetite and cardiopulmonary) were considered. The main outcome was phobic anxiety measured by the Crown Crisp Index (CCI) in 2004 in the NHS and in 2000 in the HPFS.
resultsIn observational analysis, a 1-unit higher BMI was associated with higher phobic anxiety symptoms [women: β = 0.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.030-0.068; men: β = 0.04, 95% CI 0.016-0.071). IV analyses showed that BMI was associated with higher phobic anxiety symptoms in the FTO-instrumented analysis (p = 0.005) but not in the GRS-instrumented analysis (p = 0.256). Functional GRSs showed heterogeneous, non-significant effects of BMI on phobic anxiety symptoms.
conclusionsOur findings do not provide conclusive evidence in favor of the hypothesis that higher BMI leads to higher levels of phobic anxiety, but rather suggest that genes that influence obesity, in particular FTO, may have direct effects on phobic anxiety, and hence that obesity and phobic anxiety may share common genetic determinants.
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