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European Heart Journal Advance Access published online on September 22, 2008
European Heart Journal, doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehn428
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Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2008. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

On the use of Mendelian randomization to infer causality in observational epidemiology

Murielle Bochud*

Community Prevention Unit, University Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Rue du Bugnon 17, 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland

* Corresponding author. Tel: +41 21 314 7254, Fax: +41 21 314 7373. Email: murielle.bochud@chuv.ch

This editorial refers to ‘Lifetime body mass index and later atherosclerosis risk in young adults: examining causal links using Mendelian randomization in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study’{dagger} by M. Kivimäki et al., on page 2552

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

For obvious ethical reasons, risk factors cannot be assessed in randomized controlled trials. Epidemiologists therefore usually identify risk factors using observational data. It is, however, difficult to establish causal relationships between risk factors and common complex diseases because observational studies are prone to spurious results due to confounding factors, reverse causation, and/or selection biases.1 Atherosclerosis is a common complex trait influenced by several cardiovascular risk factors that tend to cluster. In this context, determining whether a putative risk factor is causaly related to atherosclerosis, independently of all other risk factors (i.e. ceteris paribus), is a challenging task.

What is Mendelian randomization?

The concept of Mendelian randomization refers to the random allocation of alleles at the time of gamete formation. By analogy with the fact that the random allocation of treatment in a randomized controlled trial . . . [Full Text of this Article]

The limitations of Mendelian randomization

The present study in perspective


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Related articles in EHJ:

Lifetime body mass index and later atherosclerosis risk in young adults: examining causal links using Mendelian randomization in the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study
Mika Kivimäki, George Davey Smith, Nic J. Timpson, Debbie A. Lawlor, G. David Batty, Mika Kähönen, Markus Juonala, Tapani Rönnemaa, Jorma S.A. Viikari, Terho Lehtimäki, and Olli T. Raitakari
EHJ 2008 29: 2552-2560. [Abstract] [FREE Full Text]