Incorporating biological and clinical insights into variant choice for Mendelian randomisation: examples and principles.

Mendelian randomisation is an accessible and valuable epidemiological approach to provide insight into the causal nature of relationships between risk factor exposures and disease outcomes. However, if performed without critical thought, we may simply have replaced one set of implausible assumptions (no unmeasured confounding or reverse causation) with another set of implausible assumptions (no pleiotropy or other instrument invalidity). The most critical decision to avoid pleiotropy is which genetic variants to use as instrumental variables.

Plasma antioxidants and risk of dementia in older adults.

Introduction: Plant-based diets rich in fruits and vegetables have been associated with lower risk of dementia, but the specific role of antioxidants, a key class of bioactive phytochemicals, has not been well ascertained.

Methods: We measured antioxidants in a case-cohort study nested within the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory Study. We included 996 randomly selected participants and 521 participants who developed dementia, of which 351 were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD) during a median of 5.

Methylation vs. Protein Inflammatory Biomarkers and Their Associations With Cardiovascular Function.

DNA methylation data can be used to estimate proportions of leukocyte subsets retrospectively, when directly measured cell counts are unavailable. The methylation-derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratios (mdNLRs and mdLMRs) have proven to be particularly useful as indicators of systemic inflammation. As with directly measured NLRs and LMRs, these methylation-derived ratios have been used as prognostic markers for cancer, although little is known about them in relation to other disorders with inflammatory components, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD).