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Milk intake and incident stroke and CHD in populations of European descent: a Mendelian randomisation study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2021

L. E. T. Vissers
Affiliation:
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
I. Sluijs
Affiliation:
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
S. Burgess
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
N. G. Forouhi
Affiliation:
MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
H. Freisling
Affiliation:
International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France
F. Imamura
Affiliation:
MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
T. K. Nilsson
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Biosciences/Clinical Chemistry, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
F. Renström
Affiliation:
Department of Biobank Research, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
E. Weiderpass
Affiliation:
International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France
K. Aleksandrova
Affiliation:
Germany Institute of Nutritional Sciences, University of Potsdam, Nuthetal, Germany
C. C. Dahm
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
A. Perez-Cornago
Affiliation:
Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
M. B. Schulze
Affiliation:
German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Neuherberg, Germany Germany Institute of Nutritional Sciences, University of Potsdam, Nuthetal, Germany
T. Y. N. Tong
Affiliation:
Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
D. Aune
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK Department of Nutrition, Bjørknes University College, Oslo, Norway Department of Endocrinology, Morbid Obesity and Preventive Medicine, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
C. Bonet
Affiliation:
Unit of Nutrition and Cancer, Cancer Epidemiology Research Program, Catalan Institute of Oncology-IDIBELL, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
J. M. A. Boer
Affiliation:
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
H. Boeing
Affiliation:
German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany
M. D. Chirlaque
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology, Regional Health Council, IMIB-Arrixaca, Murcia University, Murcia, Spain CIBER in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
M. I. Conchi
Affiliation:
Navarra Public Health Institute – IdiSNA, Pamplona, Spain Research Network on Health Services in Chronic Diseases (REDISSEC), Pamplona, Spain
L. Imaz
Affiliation:
Ministry of Health of the Basque Government, Public Health Division of Gipuzkoa, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain Biodonostia Health Research Institute, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
S. Jäger
Affiliation:
German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Neuherberg, Germany
V. Krogh
Affiliation:
Epidemiology and prevention Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Instituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano, Italy
C. Kyrø
Affiliation:
Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark
G. Masala
Affiliation:
Cancer Risk Factors and Life-Style Epidemiology Unit, Institute for Cancer Research, Prevention and Clinical Network – ISPRO, Florence, Italy
O. Melander
Affiliation:
Lund University, Department of Clinical Sciences, Malmö, Sweden
K. Overvad
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Department of Cardiology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark
S. Panico
Affiliation:
Dipartemento di medicina clinica e chirurgia, Federico II University, Naples, Italy
M. J. Sánches
Affiliation:
CIBER in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain Andalusian School of Public Health (EASP), Granada, Spain Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria de Granada, Granada, Spain Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
E. Sonestedt
Affiliation:
Lund University, Department of Clinical Sciences, Malmö, Sweden
A. Tjønneland
Affiliation:
Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark
I. Tzoulaki
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK
W. M. M. Verschuren
Affiliation:
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
E. Riboli
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, Imperial College London, UK
N. J. Wareham
Affiliation:
MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
J. Danesh
Affiliation:
MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
A. S. Butterworth
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Department of Medical Statistics, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Y. T. van der Schouw*
Affiliation:
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
*
*Corresponding author: Yvonne van der Schouw, email y.t.vanderschouw@umcutrecht.nl
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Abstract

Higher milk intake has been associated with a lower stroke risk, but not with risk of CHD. Residual confounding or reverse causation cannot be excluded. Therefore, we estimated the causal association of milk consumption with stroke and CHD risk through instrumental variable (IV) and gene-outcome analyses. IV analysis included 29 328 participants (4611 stroke; 9828 CHD) of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-CVD (eight European countries) and European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Netherlands (EPIC-NL) case-cohort studies. rs4988235, a lactase persistence (LP) SNP which enables digestion of lactose in adulthood was used as genetic instrument. Intake of milk was first regressed on rs4988235 in a linear regression model. Next, associations of genetically predicted milk consumption with stroke and CHD were estimated using Prentice-weighted Cox regression. Gene-outcome analysis included 777 024 participants (50 804 cases) from MEGASTROKE (including EPIC-CVD), UK Biobank and EPIC-NL for stroke, and 483 966 participants (61 612 cases) from CARDIoGRAM, UK Biobank, EPIC-CVD and EPIC-NL for CHD. In IV analyses, each additional LP allele was associated with a higher intake of milk in EPIC-CVD (β = 13·7 g/d; 95 % CI 8·4, 19·1) and EPIC-NL (36·8 g/d; 95 % CI 20·0, 53·5). Genetically predicted milk intake was not associated with stroke (HR per 25 g/d 1·05; 95 % CI 0·94, 1·16) or CHD (1·02; 95 % CI 0·96, 1·08). In gene-outcome analyses, there was no association of rs4988235 with risk of stroke (OR 1·02; 95 % CI 0·99, 1·05) or CHD (OR 0·99; 95 % CI 0·95, 1·03). Current Mendelian randomisation analysis does not provide evidence for a causal inverse relationship between milk consumption and stroke or CHD risk.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - SA
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is included and the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society
Figure 0

Table 1. Habitual dietary intake and association between lactase persistence genotype and dietary intake among EPIC-CVD sub-cohort participants(95 % confidence intervals)

Figure 1

Table 2. Habitual dietary intake and association between lactase persistence genotype and dietary intake among 2025 EPIC-NL sub-cohort participants(95 % confidence intervals)

Figure 2

Fig. 1. Hazard ratio and 95 % CI for each 25 g/d increase in genetically predicted milk intake and risk of total stroke in EPIC-CVD countries and in EPIC-NL, assuming an additive effect of rs4988235.

Figure 3

Fig. 2. OR or hazard ratio and 95 % CI for each additional rs4998235 lactase persistence (T) allele and risk of total stroke in UK Biobank, MEGASTROKE (including EPIC-CVD data) and EPIC-NL. * OR for UK Biobank and MEGASTROKE, HR for EPIC-NL and RR for the pooled estimate.

Figure 4

Fig. 3. Hazard ratio and 95 % CI for each 25 g/d increase in genetically predicted milk intake and risk of CHD in EPIC-CVD countries and in EPIC-NL, assuming an additive effect of rs4988235.

Figure 5

Fig. 4. OR or hazard ratio and 95 % CI for each additional rs4998235 lactase persistence (T) allele and risk of CHD in UK Biobank, CARDIoGRAM and the EPIC studies (EPIC-CVD and EPIC-NL combined). * OR for UK Biobank and CARDIoGRAM, HR for EPIC-NL and RR for the pooled estimate.

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