ArticleBMC medicine2021
Evaluation of glycemic traits in susceptibility to COVID-19 risk: a Mendelian randomization study.
Article in BMC medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Challenges in interpreting Mendelian randomization studies with a disease as the exposure: Using COVID-19 liability studies as an exemplar.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2025Pooled it
- Risk phenotypes of diabetes and association with COVID-19 severity and death: an update of a living systematic review and meta-analysis.Diabetologia · 2023Pooled it
- Identifying factors contributing to increased susceptibility to COVID-19 risk: a systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Morbidity and risk factors of COVID-19 in people with HIV-1 in Europe: A combined observational cohort and nested case-control study.HIV medicine · 2025Observational
- Causal relationship between nitrogen dioxide and the risk of Parkinson's disease: Evidence from a Mendelian randomization study.Medicine · 2025Article
- Allopurinol is Associated with an Increased Risk of Cerebral Infarction: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.ACS omega · 2024Article
- A two-sample Mendelian randomization study explores metabolic profiling of different glycemic traits.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Investigating the causal associations between five anthropometric indicators and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: Mendelian randomization study.World journal of clinical cases · 2024Article
- Evaluating the role of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes: a Mendelian randomization study in Europeans and East Asians.International journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Shared genetic architecture between type 2 diabetes and COVID-19 severity.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2023Article
- Article
- Comorbidities, multimorbidity and COVID-19.Nature medicine · 2023Review
- Genetic support of the causal association between gut microbiome and COVID-19: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Observational
- Article
- Article
- Estimating causal effects of genetically predicted type 2 diabetes on COVID-19 in the East Asian population.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Article
- Shared genetic mechanism between type 2 diabetes and COVID-19 using pathway-based association analysis.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Genetic Predisposition to Severe COVID-19 Might Increase the Risk of Stroke: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Periodontal disease increases the host susceptibility to COVID-19 and its severity: a Mendelian randomization study.Journal of translational medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundObservational studies suggest poorer glycemic traits and type 2 diabetes associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) risk although these findings could be confounded by socioeconomic position. We conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization to clarify their role in COVID-19 risk and specific COVID-19 phenotypes (hospitalized and severe cases).
methodWe identified genetic instruments for fasting glucose (n = 133,010), 2 h glucose (n = 42,854), glycated hemoglobin (n = 123,665), and type 2 diabetes (74,124 cases and 824,006 controls) from genome wide association studies and applied them to COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative summary statistics (17,965 COVID-19 cases and 1,370,547 population controls). We used inverse variance weighting to obtain the causal estimates of glycemic traits and genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes in COVID-19 risk. Sensitivity analyses included MR-Egger and weighted median method.
resultsWe found genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes was not associated with any COVID-19 phenotype (OR: 1.00 per unit increase in log odds of having diabetes, 95%CI 0.97 to 1.04 for overall COVID-19; OR: 1.02, 95%CI 0.95 to 1.09 for hospitalized COVID-19; and OR: 1.00, 95%CI 0.93 to 1.08 for severe COVID-19). There were no strong evidence for an association of glycemic traits in COVID-19 phenotypes, apart from a potential inverse association for fasting glucose albeit with wide confidence interval.
conclusionWe provide some genetic evidence that poorer glycemic traits and predisposition to type 2 diabetes unlikely increase the risk of COVID-19. Although our study did not indicate glycemic traits increase severity of COVID-19, additional studies are needed to verify our findings.
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