Gene–environment interactions and vitamin D effects on cardiovascular risk

Excerpt

Mendelian randomization is the random assortment of genes from parents to offspring that occurs during gamete formation. It represents a type of natural randomization in large populations, where the combination of the variants of one or more genes determine the intensity of a phenotype [1]. Plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D (pVitD) concentrations are affected by polymorphisms of DHCR7 and CYP2R1 genes, such that clustering a population according to their haplotypes allows the stratification of lifelong exposure to low or high pVitD levels. Such a natural experiment was employed by Afzal et al. [2] to show that, in a large European cohort, lifelong exposure to reduced pVitD levels is associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality. …