ArticleCancer causes & control : CCC2018
Mendelian randomization does not support serum calcium in prostate cancer risk.
Article in Cancer causes & control : CCC, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies on risk of cancer.BMC medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Development and validation of a prostate cancer risk prediction model for the elevated PSA population.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
- Micronutrients and risks of three main urologic cancers: A mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Review
- Article
- Examination of potential novel biochemical factors in relation to prostate cancer incidence and mortality in UK Biobank.British journal of cancer · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
purposeObservational studies suggest that dietary and serum calcium are risk factors for prostate cancer. However, such studies suffer from residual confounding (due to unmeasured or imprecisely measured confounders), undermining causal inference. Mendelian randomization uses randomly assigned (hence unconfounded and pre-disease onset) germline genetic variation to proxy for phenotypes and strengthen causal inference in observational studies. We tested the hypothesis that serum calcium is associated with an increased risk of overall and advanced prostate cancer.
methodsA genetic instrument was constructed using five single-nucleotide polymorphisms robustly associated with serum calcium in a genome-wide association study (n ≤ 61,079). This instrument was then used to test the effect of a 0.5 mg/dL increase (1 standard deviation, SD) in serum calcium on risk of prostate cancer in 72,729 men in the PRACTICAL (Prostate Cancer Association Group to Investigate Cancer Associated Alterations in the Genome) Consortium (44,825 cases, 27,904 controls) and risk of advanced prostate cancer in 33,498 men (6,263 cases, 27,235 controls).
resultsWe found weak evidence for a protective effect of serum calcium on prostate cancer risk (odds ratio [OR] per 0.5 mg/dL increase in calcium: 0.83, 95% CI 0.63-1.08; p = 0.12). We did not find strong evidence for an effect of serum calcium on advanced prostate cancer (OR per 0.5 mg/dL increase in calcium: 0.98, 95% CI 0.57-1.70; p = 0.93).
conclusionsOur Mendelian randomization analysis does not support the hypothesis that serum calcium increases risk of overall or advanced prostate cancer.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.