The association between homocysteine and risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) remains unclear. We implemented a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to comprehensively investigate the causal relationships between circulating homocysteine, vitamin B12 (VitB12), and folate levels and MS with data from large-scale genome-wide association studies. MR results demonstrated an inverse association between genetically predicted higher circulating homocysteine levels (per 1 standard deviation (SD) increase) and risk of MS (OR 0.78, 95% CI 0.64-0.94, p = 0.0106). No significant causal relationships between genetically determined higher VitB12 and folate levels and MS were observed. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the potential mechanisms.
Keywords: Causality; Folate; Homocysteine; Mendelian randomization analysis; Multiple sclerosis; Vitamin B12.
Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.