Causal Effects of Modifiable Risk Factors on Kidney Stones: a Bidirectional Mendelian Randomization Study

Increasing epidemiological studies demonstrated that modifiable risk factors affected the risk of kidney stones. We aimed to systemically assess these causal associations using a bidirectional Mendelian randomization study. We obtained instrumental variables related to each exposure at the genome-wide significant threshold (P < 5 × 10–8). Summary level data for outcomes from the FinnGen consortium and UK Biobank were utilized in the discovery and replication stage. The Inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was used as the primary analysis, with additional sensitivity analyses and fix-effect meta-analysis to verify the robustness of IVW results. Among 46 risk factors, five were significantly associated with nephrolithiasis risk in the FinnGen consortium, UK Biobank, and meta-analyses collectively. The odds ratios (ORs) (95