Heavier smoking may lead to a relative increase in waist circumference: evidence for a causal relationship from a Mendelian randomisation meta-analysis. The CARTA consortium.
Morris, Richard W;
Taylor, Amy E;
Fluharty, Meg E;
Bjørngaard, Johan H;
Åsvold, Bjørn Olav;
Elvestad Gabrielsen, Maiken;
Campbell, Archie;
Marioni, Riccardo;
Kumari, Meena;
Korhonen, Tellervo;
+52 more...Männistö, Satu;
Marques-Vidal, Pedro;
Kaakinen, Marika;
Cavadino, Alana;
Postmus, Iris;
Husemoen, Lise Lotte N;
Skaaby, Tea;
Ahluwalia, Tarun Veer Singh;
Treur, Jorien L;
Willemsen, Gonneke;
Dale, Caroline;
Wannamethee, S Goya;
Lahti, Jari;
Palotie, Aarno;
Räikkönen, Katri;
McConnachie, Alex;
Padmanabhan, Sandosh;
Wong, Andrew;
Dalgård, Christine;
Paternoster, Lavinia;
Ben-Shlomo, Yoav;
Tyrrell, Jessica;
Horwood, John;
Fergusson, David M;
Kennedy, Martin A;
Nohr, Ellen A;
Christiansen, Lene;
Kyvik, Kirsten Ohm;
Kuh, Diana;
Watt, Graham;
Eriksson, Johan G;
Whincup, Peter H;
Vink, Jacqueline M;
Boomsma, Dorret I;
Davey Smith, George;
Lawlor, Debbie;
Linneberg, Allan;
Ford, Ian;
Jukema, J Wouter;
Power, Chris;
Hyppönen, Elina;
Jarvelin, Marjo-Riitta;
Preisig, Martin;
Borodulin, Katja;
Kaprio, Jaakko;
Kivimaki, Mika;
Smith, Blair H;
Hayward, Caroline;
Romundstad, Pål R;
Sørensen, Thorkild IA;
Munafò, Marcus R;
Sattar, Naveed;
(2015)
Heavier smoking may lead to a relative increase in waist circumference: evidence for a causal relationship from a Mendelian randomisation meta-analysis. The CARTA consortium.
BMJ open, 5 (8).
e008808-.
ISSN 2044-6055
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008808
Permanent Identifier
Use this Digital Object Identifier when citing or linking to this resource.
OBJECTIVES: To investigate, using a Mendelian randomisation approach, whether heavier smoking is associated with a range of regional adiposity phenotypes, in particular those related to abdominal adiposity. DESIGN: Mendelian randomisation meta-analyses using a genetic variant (rs16969968/rs1051730 in the CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4 gene region) as a proxy for smoking heaviness, of the associations of smoking heaviness with a range of adiposity phenotypes. PARTICIPANTS: 148,731 current, former and never-smokers of European ancestry aged ≥ 16 years from 29 studies in the consortium for Causal Analysis Research in Tobacco and Alcohol (CARTA). PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Waist and hip circumferences, and waist-hip ratio. RESULTS: The data included up to 66,809 never-smokers, 43,009 former smokers and 38,913 current daily cigarette smokers. Among current smokers, for each extra minor allele, the geometric mean was lower for waist circumference by -0.40% (95% CI -0.57% to -0.22%), with effects on hip circumference, waist-hip ratio and body mass index (BMI) being -0.31% (95% CI -0.42% to -0.19), -0.08% (-0.19% to 0.03%) and -0.74% (-0.96% to -0.51%), respectively. In contrast, among never-smokers, these effects were higher by 0.23% (0.09% to 0.36%), 0.17% (0.08% to 0.26%), 0.07% (-0.01% to 0.15%) and 0.35% (0.18% to 0.52%), respectively. When adjusting the three central adiposity measures for BMI, the effects among current smokers changed direction and were higher by 0.14% (0.05% to 0.22%) for waist circumference, 0.02% (-0.05% to 0.08%) for hip circumference and 0.10% (0.02% to 0.19%) for waist-hip ratio, for each extra minor allele. CONCLUSIONS: For a given BMI, a gene variant associated with increased cigarette consumption was associated with increased waist circumference. Smoking in an effort to control weight may lead to accumulation of central adiposity.
