Investigating the causal effects of childhood and adulthood adiposity on later life mental health outcome: a Mendelian randomization study

Background Obesity particularly during childhood is considered a global public health crisis and has been linked with later life health consequences including mental health. However, there is lack of causal understanding if childhood body size has a direct effect on mental health or has an indirect...

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Published in:BMC medicine Vol. 23; no. 1; pp. 4 - 9
Main Authors: Pathak, Sweta, Richardson, Tom G., Sanderson, Eleanor, Åsvold, Bjørn Olav, Bhatta, Laxmi, Brumpton, Ben M.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London BioMed Central 06.01.2025
BioMed Central Ltd
Springer Nature B.V
BMC
Subjects:
Adipose tissue
Adiposity - genetics
Adult
Adulthood
Adults
Analysis
Anxiety
Anxiety - epidemiology
Biobanks
Biomedicine
Body mass index
Body size
Care and treatment
Causal inference
Child
Child & adolescent mental health
Child psychopathology
Childhood
Children
Complications and side effects
Consortia
Depression
Depression - epidemiology
Depression - genetics
Diagnosis
Estimates
Female
Genome-wide association studies
Genome-Wide Association Study
Humans
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mendelian randomization
Mendelian Randomization Analysis
Mental depression
Mental disorders
Mental Health
Obesity
Observational studies
Public health
Randomization
Research Article
Risk factors
Risk reduction
Software
United Kingdom - epidemiology
United Kingdom
Norway
United Kingdom > UK
Obesity
Depression
Anxiety
Adulthood
Mendelian randomization
Childhood
ISSN:1741-7015, 1741-7015
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Background Obesity particularly during childhood is considered a global public health crisis and has been linked with later life health consequences including mental health. However, there is lack of causal understanding if childhood body size has a direct effect on mental health or has an indirect effect after accounting for adulthood body size. Methods Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) was performed to estimate the total effect and direct effect (accounting for adulthood body size) of childhood body size on anxiety and depression. We used summary statistics from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of UK Biobank ( n  = 453,169) and large-scale consortia of anxiety (Million Veteran Program) and depression (Psychiatric Genomics Consortium) ( n  = 175,163 and n  = 173,005, respectively). Results Univariable MR did not indicate genetically predicted effects of childhood body size with later life anxiety (beta = − 0.05, 95% CI = − 0.13, 0.02) and depression (OR = 1.06, 95% CI = 0.94, 1.20). However, using multivariable MR, we observed that the higher body size in childhood reduced the risk of later life anxiety (beta = − 0.19, 95% CI = − 0.29, − 0.08) and depression (OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.71, 0.97) upon accounting for the effect of adulthood body size. Both univariable and multivariable MR indicated that higher body size in adulthood increased the risk of later life anxiety and depression. Conclusions Higher body size in adulthood may increase the risk of anxiety and depression, independent of childhood higher body size. In contrast, higher childhood body size does not appear to be a risk factor for later life anxiety and depression.
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ISSN:1741-7015
1741-7015
DOI:10.1186/s12916-024-03765-6