| Title: | Assessing the role of cortisol in cancer: a wide-ranged Mendelian randomisation study |
| Journal: | British Journal of Cancer |
| Published: | 27 Jul 2021 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34316022/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-021-01505-8 |
| URL: | http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1617122/FULLTEXT01 |
Publication 4109
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Abstract
BackgroundCortisol's immunosuppressive, obesogenic, and hyperglycaemic effects suggest that it may play a role in cancer development. However, whether cortisol increases cancer risk is not known. We investigated the potential causal association between plasma cortisol and risk of overall and common site-specific cancers using Mendelian randomisation.MethodsThree genetic variants associated with morning plasma cortisol levels at the genome-wide significance level (P < 5 × 10−8) in the Cortisol Network consortium were used as genetic instruments. Summary-level genome-wide association study data for the cancer outcomes were obtained from large-scale cancer consortia, the UK Biobank, and the FinnGen consortium. Two-sample Mendelian randomisation analyses were performed using the fixed-effects inverse-variance weighted method. Estimates across data sources were combined using meta-analysis.ResultsA standard deviation increase in genetically predicted plasma cortisol was associated with increased risk of endometrial cancer (odds ratio 1.50, 95% confidence interval 1.13-1.99; P = 0.005). There was no significant association between genetically predicted plasma cortisol and risk of other common site-specific cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate, colorectal, lung, or malignant skin cancer, or overall cancer.ConclusionsThese results indicate that elevated plasma cortisol levels may increase the risk of endometrial cancer but not other cancers. The mechanism by which this occurs remains to be investigated.</p>
5 Authors
- Susanna C. Larsson
- Wei-Hsuan Lee
- Siddhartha Kar
- Stephen Burgess
- Elias Allara
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health