ArticleInternational journal of general medicine2026
The Gut-Disc Axis: Mendelian Randomization Study Reveals Causal Effects of Gut Microbiota on Intervertebral Disc Degeneration Not Mediated by Systemic Inflammation.
Article in International journal of general medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) is a major cause of low back pain. Observational studies suggest a link with gut microbiota (GM), possibly mediated by systemic inflammation, but causality remains unclear. Objective: To assess the suggestive associations of GM and inflammatory cytokines (ICs) on IVDD using Mendelian randomization (MR), and evaluate potential mediation by ICs. Methods: We performed a two-sample MR analysis. Genetic instruments for GM came from MiBioGen (n=18,340), for 41 ICs from a meta-analysis (n=8337), and for IVDD from FinnGen (29,508 cases/227,388 controls). Inverse-variance weighted (IVW) was the primary method. Mediation was assessed via two-step MR, with sensitivity analyses (MR-Egger, MR-PRESSO). Results: At the nominal significance level ( Conclusion: This study provides genetic evidence supporting a potential gut-disc axis. The lack of evidence for cytokine mediation does not exclude alternative pathways but indicates insufficient support for systemic cytokine-mediated mechanisms among those examined; future mechanistic studies should explore microbial metabolites and local immune activity.
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