The Impact of Non-alcohol Fatty Liver Disease on Bone Mineral Density is Mediated by Sclerostin by Mendelian Randomization Study

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been found to be associated with osteoporosis (OP) in observational studies. However, the precise causal relationship between NAFLD and OP remains unclear. Here, we used Mendelian randomization (MR) to explore the causal relationship. We selected NAFLD-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms from a genome-wide meta-analysis (8434 cases and 434,770 controls) as instrumental variants. We used inverse variance weighted analysis for the primary MR analysis. Furthermore, we used similar methodologies in parallel investigations of other chronic liver diseases (CLDs). We performed sensitivity analyses to ensure the reliability of the results. We observed a causality between NAFLD and forearm bone mineral density (FABMD) (beta-estimate [β]: − 0.212; p-value: 0.034). We also found that sclerostin can act as a mediator to influence the NAFLD and FABMD pathways to form a mediated MR network (mediated proportion = 8.8%). We also identified indications of causal relationships between other CLDs and OP. However, we were unable to establish any associated mediators. Notably, our analyses did not yield any evidence of pleiotropy. Our findings have implications in the development of preventive and interventional measures aimed at managing low bone mineral density in patients with NAFLD.