The causal association between smoking initiation, alcohol and coffee consumption, and women's reproductive health: A two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis

Front Genet. 2023 Apr 6:14:1098616. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1098616. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Objective: A number of epidemiological studies have demonstrated that smoking initiation and alcohol and coffee consumption were closely related to women's reproductive health. However, there was still insufficient evidence supporting their direct causality effect. Methods: We utilized two-sample Mendelian randomization (TSMR) analysis with summary datasets from genome-wide association study (GWAS) to investigate the causal relationship between smoking initiation, alcohol and coffee consumption, and women's reproductive health-related traits. Exposure genetic instruments were used as variants significantly related to traits. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was used as the main analysis approach, and we also performed MR-PRESSO, MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode to supplement the sensitivity test. Then, the horizontal pleiotropy was detected by using MRE intercept and MR-PRESSO methods, and the heterogeneity was assessed using Cochran's Q statistics. Results: We found evidence that smoking women showed a significant inverse causal association with the sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) levels (corrected β = -0.033, p = 9.05E-06) and age at menopause (corrected β = -0.477, p = 6.60E-09) and a potential positive correlation with the total testosterone (TT) levels (corrected β = 0.033, p = 1.01E-02). In addition, there was suggestive evidence for the alcohol drinking effect on the elevated TT levels (corrected β = 0.117, p = 5.93E-03) and earlier age at menopause (corrected β = -0.502, p = 4.14E-02) among women, while coffee consumption might decrease the female SHBG levels (corrected β = -0.034, p = 1.33E-03). Conclusion: Our findings suggested that smoking in women significantly decreased their SHBG concentration, promoted earlier menopause, and possibly reduced the TT levels. Alcohol drinking had a potential effect on female higher TT levels and earlier menopause, while coffee consumption might lead to lower female SHBG levels.

Keywords: Mendelian randomization; alcohol drinking; coffee consumption; menstrual health; reproduction-related hormones; smoking initiation.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82088102 and 82171688), Collaborative Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (2020CXJQ01), Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Reproduction and Development, CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (2019-I2M-5-064), Clinical Research Plan of SHDC (SHDC2020CR1008A), and Scientific Research Fund of Zhejiang Provincial Education Department (Y202250855).