Wednesday 19 July 8:30 a.m. - 9:40 a.m. (Canada/Eastern)
Abstract
Dyslipidemia is becoming prevalent in Africa, where malaria is endemic. Observational studies have documented the long-term protective effect of malaria on dyslipidemia; however, these study designs are prone to confounding. Therefore, we used Mendelian randomization (MR- a method robust to confounders and reverse causation) to determine the causal effect of recurrent mild malaria (RMM) on lipid traits. in this communication, we performed two-sample Mendelian randomization Genome Wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics for RMM conducted in Benin, (N=775) and lipid traits from African ancestry individual in Million Veteran Program (N= 57,332). We found an association between RMM and levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (Beta = -0.025, 95% CI, -0.042 to -0.007 p-value=0.005) and total cholesterol (Beta = -0.019, 95% CI, -0.035 to -0.002, p-value= 0.028). No significant association was obtained with High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and levels of triglycerides. The finding of this study supports a causal relationship between RMM and levels of LDL-C and total cholesterol. We believe that larger studies on the link between malaria and dyslipidemia in Africa will help to manage the burden of both diseases better.
