Potential causal association between aspirin use and erectile dysfunction in European population: a Mendelian randomization study

Rongkang Li; Lei Peng; Dashi Deng; Guangzhi Li; Song Wu

doi:10.3389/fendo.2023.1329847

Potential causal association between aspirin use and erectile dysfunction in European population: a Mendelian randomization study

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2024 Jan 8:14:1329847. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2023.1329847. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Rongkang Li^#^{1

2

3}, Lei Peng^#^{1

2

3}, Dashi Deng^#², Guangzhi Li², Song Wu^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Urology, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
² Institute of Urology, The Affiliated Luohu Hospital of Shenzhen University, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
³ Institute of Urology, South China Hospital, Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Aspirin, as one of the most commonly used drugs, possesses a broad spectrum of therapeutic applications. Presently, the potential association between aspirin usage and the risk elevation of erectile dysfunction (ED) remains inconclusive. The objective of this study employing two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) was to clarify the causal impact of aspirin use on the risk of ED.

Methods: This study incorporated two sets of Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) summary statistics, one for aspirin use (46,946 cases and 286,635 controls) and another for ED (6,175 cases and 217,630 controls) in individuals of European ancestry. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was employed as the primary approach, supplemented by MR-Egger, weighted median, weighted mode, and simple mode to estimate the causal effect of aspirin usage on the risk of ED development. To assess pleiotropy, the MR-PRESSO global test and MR-Egger regression were used. Cochran's Q test was adopted to check heterogeneity, and the leave-one-out analysis was performed to confirm the robustness and reliability of the results.

Results: The causal association between genetically inferred aspirin use and ED was found by using inverse variance weighted (OR = 20.896, 95% confidence interval = 2.077-2.102E+2, P = 0.010). The sensitivity analysis showed that no pleiotropy and heterogeneity was observed. Furthermore, the leave-one-out analysis demonstrated that the findings were not significantly affected by any instrumental variables.

Conclusion: The results of this study highlighted the significance of aspirin use as a predisposing factor for ED and provided further evidence supporting the causal association between aspirin utilization and ED within European populations.

Keywords: GWAS; Mendelian randomization; aspirin; causal analysis; erectile dysfunction.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Aspirin / adverse effects
Causality
Erectile Dysfunction* / chemically induced
Erectile Dysfunction* / genetics
Genome-Wide Association Study
Humans
Male
Mendelian Randomization Analysis
Reproducibility of Results

Substances

Aspirin

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was partially supported by the Medical Scientific Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (A2022024) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61731018).