Causal Effects of Lipids-Related Metabolites on Androgenic Alopecia: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

PURPOSE: To investigate whether increased levels of lipids-related metabolites (LRMs) result in androgenic alopecia (AGA).

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was designed, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) respectively related to nine LRMs were selected from the genome-wide association study (GWAS) dataset. An MR analysis was performed to assess the causal association between LRMs and AGA.

RESULTS

Through the fixed-effect inverse variance weighting (IVW) method, MR analysis indicated that Apolipoprotein B (ApoB), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) had a causal relationship with AGA. No obvious heterogeneity or pleiotropy was observed.

CONCLUSION

The risk of AGA increases significantly when the serum levels of ApoB, LDL, and VLDL increase. This causal relationship is solid and free of interference from confounding factors.