Causal Relationship Between Blood Triglyceride Levels and Age Spots: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the association between blood triglyceride (TG) levels (TLIB) and age spots (AS). METHODS: We acquired data from the Mendelian randomization (MR) Base database and evaluated the causal association between TLIB and AS. RESULTS: From genome-wide association studies, we selected 33 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were significantly associated with TLIB and AS. The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) and weighted median estimation methods showed that TLIB had a protective effect on AS (IVW: β=−0.214, P=0.019, odds ratio [OR]=0.807, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.674–0.966; weighted median: β=−0.277, P=0.032, OR=0.758, 95% CI=0.589–0.977). However, the MR‐Egger analysis suggested no causal association (β=−0.234, P=0.085, OR=0.792, 95% CI=0.612–1.024). The greater precision of the weighted median estimation and IVW suggests that our results support a potential causal association between TLIB and AS. CONCLUSION: The MR analysis proved that TLIB has a protective effect against AS and that triglycerides have potential preventive and therapeutic effects against AS. However, the specific dose-effect relationship requires further study.