ArticleMedicine2025
Exploring the causal relationship between female reproductive traits and asthma: A bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization study in a European population.
Article in Medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Epidemiological studies have reported gender disparities in asthma, suggesting female reproductive traits may play a role, though causality remains unclear. We used summary data from genome-wide association studies on 12 female reproductive traits and asthma (408,422 European individuals). Univariate (UVMR) and multivariate Mendelian randomization (MVMR) analyses were performed using inverse-variance weighted (IVW) as the primary method. Supplementary methods included MR-Egger, weighted median, and robust adjusted profile score for UVMR, and MVMR-Lasso and MVMR-median for MVMR. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to validate findings. We acknowledge that MR estimates rely on key assumptions (relevance, independence, exclusion restriction), and violations may bias causal inference. After Bonferroni correction, UVMR-IVW showed that later age at first sexual intercourse (AFS) significantly reduced asthma risk (OR = 0.663, 95% CI = 0.603-0.729, P < .001). Later age at first birth (AFB) (OR = 0.893, 95% CI = 0.862-0.926, P < .001) and last birth (ALB) (OR = 0.845, 95% CI = 0.755-0.946, P < .001) were also protective. Age at menarche (AAM) showed a nominally significant inverse association (OR = 0.968, 95% CI = 0.94-0.998, P = .034), while hormone replacement therapy (HRT) use increased asthma risk (OR = 1.435, 95% CI = 1.05-1.962, P = .024). No causal links were found for age at natural menopause, live births, stillbirths, miscarriages, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, or oral contraceptive use. In MVMR analyses adjusted for body mass index (BMI), educational attainment, smoking, and Townsend deprivation index, the protective effects of AFS (OR = 0.678, 95% CI = 0.552-0.833, P < .001) and AFB (OR = 0.933, 95% CI = 0.874-0.995, P = .033) persisted. Mediation analysis indicated BMI partially mediated the AFS and AFB-asthma associations. This MR study provides evidence consistent with a causal effect of earlier AFS and AFB on increased asthma risk, partially mediated by BMI. These findings underscore the potential importance of reproductive and metabolic health in asthma prevention strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.