ArticlePLoS genetics2019
Searching for the causal effects of body mass index in over 300 000 participants in UK Biobank, using Mendelian randomization.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 3 of them syntheses 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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
- Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology using Mendelian randomization (STROBE-MR): a Korean translation of explanation and elaboration.Ewha medical journal · 2025Guideline
- A multi-population phenome-wide association study of genetically-predicted height in the Million Veteran Program.PLoS genetics · 2022Pooled it
- Genetically predicted education attainment in relation to somatic and mental health.Scientific reports · 2021Pooled it
- The effect of micronutrient levels on leukocyte telomere length: A Mendelian randomization study.Medicine · 2026Article
- A sex-specific Mendelian randomization-phenome-wide association study of body mass index.eLife · 2025Article
- A hypothesis-free approach to identifying potential effects of relative age in school year: an instrumental variable phenome-wide association study in the UK Biobank.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Insights from the largest diverse ancestry sex-specific disease map for genetically predicted height.NPJ genomic medicine · 2025Article
- Using the global randomization test as a Mendelian randomization falsification test for the exclusion restriction assumption.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Prediction of atrial fibrillation and stroke using machine learning models in UK Biobank.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Association of Plant-Based Diet Indices and Abdominal Obesity with Mental Disorders among Older Chinese Adults.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Using language models and ontology topology to perform semantic mapping of traits between biomedical datasets.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Using genetic association data to guide drug discovery and development: Review of methods and applications.American journal of human genetics · 2023Review
- The association of measures of body shape and adiposity with incidence of cardiometabolic disease from an ageing perspective.GeroScience · 2023Article
- Genomics and phenomics of body mass index reveals a complex disease network.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Article
- Identifying potential causal effects of age at menopause: a Mendelian randomization phenome-wide association study.European journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Exploring the clinical and genetic associations of adult weight trajectories using electronic health records in a racially diverse biobank: a phenome-wide and polygenic risk study.The Lancet. Digital health · 2022Article
- Mental Health Symptom Reduction Using Digital Therapeutics Care Informed by Genomic SNPs and Gut Microbiome Signatures.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Exploring and mitigating potential bias when genetic instrumental variables are associated with multiple non-exposure traits in Mendelian randomization.European journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- First genome-wide association study of 99 body measures derived from 3-dimensional body scans.Genes & diseases · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Mendelian randomization (MR) has been used to estimate the causal effect of body mass index (BMI) on particular traits thought to be affected by BMI. However, BMI may also be a modifiable, causal risk factor for outcomes where there is no prior reason to suggest that a causal effect exists. We performed a MR phenome-wide association study (MR-pheWAS) to search for the causal effects of BMI in UK Biobank (n = 334 968), using the PHESANT open-source phenome scan tool. A subset of identified associations were followed up with a formal two-stage instrumental variable analysis in UK Biobank, to estimate the causal effect of BMI on these phenotypes. Of the 22 922 tests performed, our MR-pheWAS identified 587 associations below a stringent P value threshold corresponding to a 5% estimated false discovery rate. These included many previously identified causal effects, for instance, an adverse effect of higher BMI on risk of diabetes and hypertension. We also identified several novel effects, including protective effects of higher BMI on a set of psychosocial traits, identified initially in our preliminary MR-pheWAS in circa 115,000 UK Biobank participants and replicated in a different subset of circa 223,000 UK Biobank participants. Our comprehensive MR-pheWAS identified potential causal effects of BMI on a large and diverse set of phenotypes. This included both previously identified causal effects, and novel effects such as a protective effect of higher BMI on feelings of nervousness.
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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.