Causal effects of important dietary habits on the risk of postpartum
depression: A two-sample and multivariable Mendelian randomization study
Abstract
Objective: Observational studies have described that dietary
habits are associated with postpartum depression (PPD), but these
results are liable to influence by residual confounding. We aimed to
identify the causal effects of dietary habits on PPD by applying the
Mendelian randomization (MR) method. Design: A two-sample MR
study. Setting: Summary statistics from published genome wide
association studies (GWAS) in European ancestry populations.
Population or Sample: Instrumental variants for 23 dietary
habits were obtained from 11 studies on 3,831,176 participants.
Methods: Two-sample MR framework and sensitiviry analyses were
performed to examine the causal association between all exposures and
PPD. Main Outcome Measures: Genetic association estimate for
PPD was extracted from the FINNGEN consortium. Result: Higher
genetically predicted selenium (odds ratio [OR] per standard
deviation 1.32e+05, 95% confidence interval [CI] 19.827 to
8.75e+08, P = 0.009) and vitamin B12 (OR 4.24e+14, 95% CI 63.742
to 2.82e+27, P = 0.025) increased the risk of PPD. However, fish
oil (OR 4.03e-03, 95% CI 3.81e-03 to 0.427, P = 0.026) reduced
the risk of PPD. Conclusions: This MR study provides robust
evidence that selenium and vitamin B12 increases the risk of PPD,
meanwhile fish oil decreases the risk of PPD. It suggested that
adjustments targeting selenium, vitamin B12, and fish oil may contribute
to the primary prevention of PPD.