Yingying Jiang,1,* Siqi Ge,2,* Chunyang Wang,1 Chen Jin,1 Yumei Zhao,1 Qingying Liu3 

1Department of Neuropharmacology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Neuroepidemiology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Pain Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Henan, 450052, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Qingying Liu, Email liuqy1679@163.com

Background: Sleep played an important part in human health, and COVID-19 led to a continuous deterioration of sleep. However, the causal relationship between micronutrient and sleep disorder was not yet fully understood.
Methods: In this research, the genetic causal relationship between micronutrient and sleep disorder was analyzed utilizing a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were used as instrumental variables. The analyses were conducted using the MR-Egger, inverse variance weighted, weighted mode, weighted median, simple mode, Cochran’s Q test and leave-one-out.
Results: Our results suggested that 8 genetically predicted micronutrients participated in sleep disorders, including liver iron (L-iron) and iron in sleeping too much, spleen iron (S-iron) in sleeplessness/insomnia, trouble falling or staying asleep, sleep duration (undersleepers) and nonorganic sleeping disorders, iron metabolism disorder (IMD) and vitamin B12 deficiency anaemia (VB12DA) in narcolepsy, urine sodium (uNa) in narcolepsy, sleep apnea syndrome and sleep disorder, vitamin D (VD) in sleep duration (oversleepers), 25-Hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) in trouble falling or staying asleep.
Conclusion: Our study used Mendelian randomization methods at the SNP level to explore the potential causal relationship among L-iron, iron, S-iron, IMD, uNa, 25(OH)D, VD, VB12DA with certain sleep disorder subtypes. Our results uncovered a micronutrient-based strategy for alleviating sleep disorder symptoms.

Keywords: Mendelian randomization, micronutrient, sleep disorder, causality, vitamin