Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease, which seriously threatens human health. Physical activity (PA) has multiple benefits for health and well-being, while whether PA is associated with the risk of VTE remains debated. A 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was conducted to evaluate the causal relationship between different intensities of PA and the risk of VTE. Genetic instruments associated with PA were sourced from the UK Biobank, and VTE data came from the latest publicly released R10 data of the FinnGen study. The primary statistical method employed was the inverse variance weighted approach. MR-Egger regression, weighted median, and MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier tests were then used to evaluate the robustness of the results. Data of 4,12,181 individuals with VTE from FinnGen and 13,35,561 participants with 3 intensities of PA from UK Biobank were obtained. Our study revealed a significant association between vigorous PA and a reduced risk of VTE (OR = 0.727, 95% CI = 0.576–0.920, P .017). However, at a relaxed significance level (0.017 < P < .05), the inverse variance weighted method identified suggestive evidence of an association between light PA and a reduced risk of VTE (OR = 0.778, 95% CI = 0.610–0.994, P = .045). This study revealed a significant association between vigorous PA and a reduced risk of VTE, providing constructive suggestions for VTE preventive and intervention strategies.
Xie et al. (Fri,) studied this question.