Abstract
Background Studies have reported a close relationship between depression and sleep apnoea, yet it is unknown whether these are causally related. Thus, we aimed to determine whether depression is associated with the aetiology of sleep apnoea.
Methods We used publicly available genetic summary data from two large consortia, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, with data from 36 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) closely associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) and UK Biobank, including 456 736 patients with sleep apnoea and 766 964 controls. For Mendelian randomisation (MR) analysis, we used the inverse-variance weighted method, weighted median method, MR-Egger regression, MR pleiotropy residual sum, and outlier test to retrieve summary data. Analyses were performed using the “TwoSampleMR” package in R.
Results Of the 36 SNPs associated with MDD, we found statistically significant evidence of a potential causal effect of MDD on the risk of sleep apnoea (odds ratio 1.004, 95% confidence interval: 1.001–1.006, p=0.001). Similar results were obtained using the MR-Egger and weighted median methods. Additionally, we found no heterogeneity or pleiotropy.
Conclusions Our findings suggest that depression slightly increases the risk of sleep apnoea. Further investigation of the potential biological mechanisms is necessary.
Footnotes
This manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the European Respiratory Journal. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJ online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.
Conflict of interest: Gui Chen has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Junyang Xie has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Weixing Liu has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Tianhao Liang has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Xiao Liao has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Wenjing Liao has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Lijuan Song has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Xiaowen Zhang has nothing to disclose.
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- Received July 16, 2021.
- Accepted October 19, 2021.
- Copyright ©The authors 2021
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