Relationships between accelerometer-measured and multiple sclerosis: a 2-sample Mendelian randomization study

Background Observational studies suggest that physical activity (PA) can independently modify the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). Objective To investigate the causal effect of PA on MS by Mendelian randomization (MR) approaches. Methods Through a genome-wide association study including 91,105 participants from UK Biobank, we obtained 5 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with accelerometer-measured PA (P < 5 x 10(-8)). Summary-level data for MS were obtained from a meta-analysis, incorporating 14,802 subjects with MS and 26,703 healthy controls of European ancestry. MR analyses were performed using the inverse-variance-weighted method, weighted median estimator, and MR-PRESSO method. Additional analyses were further performed using MR-Egger intercept and Cochran's Q statistic to verify the robustness of our findings. Results We failed to detect a causal effect of PA on MS (OR, 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.30-1.20; P = 0.15) per in the random-effects IVW analysis. Additional MR methods yielded consistent results. MR-Egger regression suggested no evidence of horizontal pleiotropy (Intercept = 0.14, P = 0.21) and there seemed no substantial heterogeneity (I-2 = 29.8%, P = 0.22) among individual SNPs. Conclusion Our findings suggest that enhancing PA might not modify the risk of developing MS independent of established risk factors.