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. 2022 Nov;54(10):e14527.
doi: 10.1111/and.14527. Epub 2022 Jul 12.

Genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 may increase the risk of erectile dysfunction: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Kun Zhang  1 , Hengxing Gao  1 , Mingwei Chen  1
Affiliations

Genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 may increase the risk of erectile dysfunction: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Kun Zhang et al. Andrologia. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) and erectile dysfunction (ED) have been linked in some observational research, but the causality of this association in the European population is uncertain. Therefore, the research intended to investigate the causality of susceptibility to COVID-19 on ED. We used Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis for this research. The subjects were from two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of the European population, including COVID-19 (14,134 cases and 1,284,876 controls) and ED (6175 cases and 217,630 controls). We utilized the inverse variance-weighted (IVW) to evaluate the causality of COVID-19 genetic susceptibility on ED. Heterogeneity and pleiotropy were determined using the Cochran's Q test and MR-Egger regression. The robustness of the findings was verified using the Leave-one-out method. We obtained six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as COVID-19 genetic instrumental variables (IVs), and there was no significant pleiotropy, heterogeneity or bias in these IVs. MR analysis revealed the causality of genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 on elevated risk of ED (ORIVW = 1.235, 95% CI: 1.044-1.462, p < 0.05). The present study suggested the causality of genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 on elevated ED risk among the European population. Therefore, in order to decrease the ED risk, the European population ought to positively prevent COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Mendelian randomization; erectile dysfunction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The causality of COVID‐19 on ED risk. The slope represents the magnitude of the causal effect. MR, Mendelian randomization; ED, erectile dysfunction
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The causality of each SNP on ED risk. MR, Mendelian randomization; ED, erectile dysfunction
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Leave‐one‐out analysis of the effect of COVID‐19 on ED. MR, Mendelian randomization; ED, erectile dysfunction
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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