ArticlePLoS medicine2020
Genetics of height and risk of atrial fibrillation: A Mendelian randomization study.
Article in PLoS medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 118 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
118 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 192 citations in OpenAlex.
- Association between the gut microbiota and diabetic nephropathy: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study.Renal failure · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of inflammatory cytokines and plasma metabolome on OSA: a bidirectional two- sample Mendelian randomization study and mediation analysis.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Pooled it
- Cross-ancestry genome-wide analysis of atrial fibrillation unveils disease biology and enables cardioembolic risk prediction.Nature genetics · 2023Pooled it
- A multi-population phenome-wide association study of genetically-predicted height in the Million Veteran Program.PLoS genetics · 2022Pooled it
- Mendelian randomization of risk factors for premenstrual disorders.Npj mental health research · 2026Article
- Potential Causal Relationship Between Hypertension and Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy: Integrating Mendelian Randomization Evidence with Global Burden of Disease 2021 Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Risk factors for multimorbidity of cardiovascular diseases in the prospective Million Women Study.Open heart · 2026Article
- Constructing a protein-protein interaction network for autoimmune liver diseases by integrating pQTL, rQTL, and mediation analyses.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Plasma lipidome mediates the causal effect of chronic hepatitis B on cirrhosis: A Mendelian randomization study.Medicine · 2026Article
- Causal effects of drug exposure on gastric cancer risk: a Mendelian randomization study involving 23 commonly used medications in the European population.Discover oncology · 2026Article
- Contactin-2 protects against aortic valve calcification via osteogenic differentiation inhibition.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Exploring the effects of occupational noise on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases: A Mendelian randomization study.Medicine · 2026Article
- Independent association of leg-height ratio with 15 cardiometabolic diseases.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2026Article
- CCS-mediated mechanistic link between gestational diabetes mellitus and carpal tunnel syndrome: a multi-omics MR framework.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- Genetic Evidence for Immune Cell-Lipid Mediation Pathways Linked to Esophageal Cancer and Associated Throat/Chest Pain Phenotypes.Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Multimodal evidence for the association between muscle mass and NAFLD: insights from hospital-based data, NHANES and mendelian randomization.Frontiers in genetics · 2026Article
- Causal relationship between chronic kidney disease, renal function, and venous thromboembolism: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.Renal failure · 2025Article
- Causal effect of potential risk factors on obstructive sleep apnea: a Mendelian randomization study.Future science OA · 2025Article
- Genetic Liability to Bone Mineral Density and Functional Outcome After Ischemic Stroke.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Dissecting Causal Relationships Between Gut Microbiota Imbalance, Inflammatory Cytokines, and Structural Connectivity in the Brain: A Mendelian Randomization Study.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
58 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundObservational studies have identified height as a strong risk factor for atrial fibrillation, but this finding may be limited by residual confounding. We aimed to examine genetic variation in height within the Mendelian randomization (MR) framework to determine whether height has a causal effect on risk of atrial fibrillation. METHODS AND
findingsIn summary-level analyses, MR was performed using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies of height (GIANT/UK Biobank; 693,529 individuals) and atrial fibrillation (AFGen; 65,446 cases and 522,744 controls), finding that each 1-SD increase in genetically predicted height increased the odds of atrial fibrillation (odds ratio [OR] 1.34; 95% CI 1.29 to 1.40; p = 5 × 10-42). This result remained consistent in sensitivity analyses with MR methods that make different assumptions about the presence of pleiotropy, and when accounting for the effects of traditional cardiovascular risk factors on atrial fibrillation. Individual-level phenome-wide association studies of height and a height genetic risk score were performed among 6,567 European-ancestry participants of the Penn Medicine Biobank (median age at enrollment 63 years, interquartile range 55-72; 38% female; recruitment 2008-2015), confirming prior observational associations between height and atrial fibrillation. Individual-level MR confirmed that each 1-SD increase in height increased the odds of atrial fibrillation, including adjustment for clinical and echocardiographic confounders (OR 1.89; 95% CI 1.50 to 2.40; p = 0.007). The main limitations of this study include potential bias from pleiotropic effects of genetic variants, and lack of generalizability of individual-level findings to non-European populations.
conclusionsIn this study, we observed evidence that height is likely a positive causal risk factor for atrial fibrillation. Further study is needed to determine whether risk prediction tools including height or anthropometric risk factors can be used to improve screening and primary prevention of atrial fibrillation, and whether biological pathways involved in height may offer new targets for treatment of atrial fibrillation.
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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.