Educational attainment increases the risk of developing allergic rhinitis/eczema: a Mendelian Randomization Study based on genome-wide association studies in European patients

Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were performed using the summary data of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which involved 293,723 participants (educational attainment) from the Social Science Genetics Association Consortium (SSGAC) and 462,013 participants (allergic rhinitis/eczema) from the UK Biobank. Results In the univariable MR analyses, an increase in the duration of education by 1 year or 1 standard deviation (SD) (3.71 years) was associated with a 4.40% or 17.11% higher risk, respectively, of allergic rhinitis/eczema (odds ratio [OR] = 1.044, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.020–1.069, P < 0.001; OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.07–1.28, P < 0.001, respectively).

In the reverse MR analysis, we found little evidence that allergic rhinitis/eczema affected educational attainment (OR = 1.020, 95% CI = 0.927–1.023, P = 0.683). Conclusion This study suggests that there is a positive causal relationship between educational attainment and the risk of allergic rhinitis/eczema, which means that educational attainment can increase the occurrence of allergic rhinitis/eczema.