Abstract

The relationship between body mass index (BMI) and melanoma and other skin cancers remains unclear. The objective of this study was to employ the Mendelian randomization (MR) approach to evaluate the effects of genetically predicted childhood adiposity on the risk of developing skin cancer later in life. Two-sample MR analyses were conducted using summary data from genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analyses of childhood BMI, melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC), and basal cell carcinoma (BCC). We used the inverse-variance-weighted (IVW) methods to obtain a pooled estimate across all genetic variants for childhood BMI. We performed multiple sensitivity analyses to evaluate the potential influence of various assumptions on our findings. We found no evidence that genetically predicted childhood BMI was associated with risks of developing melanoma, cSCC, or BCC in adulthood (OR, 95% CI: melanoma: 1.02 (0.93–1.13), cSCC 0.94 (0.79–1.11), BCC 0.97 (0.84–1.12)). Our findings do not support the conclusions from observational studies that childhood BMI is associated with increased risks of melanoma, cSCC, or BCC in adulthood. Intervening on childhood adiposity will not reduce the risk of common skin cancers later in life.

Details

Title
Genetic predisposition to childhood obesity does not influence the risk of developing skin cancer in adulthood
Author
Keatley, Jay 1 ; Law, Matthew H. 2 ; Seviiri, Mathias 3 ; Olsen, Catherine M. 4 ; Pandeya, Nirmala 4 ; Ong, Jue-Sheng 3 ; MacGregor, Stuart 4 ; Whiteman, David C. 4 ; Dusingize, Jean Claude 3 

 The University of Queensland, Faculty of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1003.2) (ISNI:0000 0000 9320 7537) 
 The University of Queensland, Faculty of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1003.2) (ISNI:0000 0000 9320 7537); QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Departments of Population Health and Computational Biology, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395); Queensland University of Technology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1024.7) (ISNI:0000 0000 8915 0953) 
 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Departments of Population Health and Computational Biology, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395) 
 The University of Queensland, Faculty of Medicine, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1003.2) (ISNI:0000 0000 9320 7537); QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Departments of Population Health and Computational Biology, Brisbane, Australia (GRID:grid.1049.c) (ISNI:0000 0001 2294 1395) 
Pages
7854
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3031478510
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.