Serum Uric Acid and Male Erectile Dysfunction: a Mendelian Randomization Study

Abstract

Purpose To evaluate the potential causal relationship between serum uric acid levels and erectile dysfunction in men, this study performed a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Methods The exposure factor was serum uric acid, and the outcome factor was erectile dysfunction. All data come from genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and two-sample MR studies are conducted based on R Studio 4.3.2 and the "TwoSampleMR" R software package. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) and MR-Egger methods are mainly used for analysis. Results Neither the IVW (Beta = 0.068; SE = 0.062; p = 0.274) nor the MR Egger (Beta = 0.079; SE = 0.101; p = 0.436) approaches demonstrated a causal association between the two variables. Conclusions According to this MR study, there is no causal relationship between serum uric acid levels and male erectile dysfunction, so medication to lower uric acid levels alone may not be effective in treating erectile dysfunction in patients with high serum uric acid.