Mining human epidemiological data can only produce correlations. Mendelian randomization is a way to add data on genetic variants known to affect disease status into the mix so as to add some support for causation. The result isn’t a determination of causation, but in the best case is supportive of that conclusion. Physical frailty is well known to correlate with neurodegeneration, and a range of reasonable hypotheses exist to explain why this is the case. Both emerge from chronic inflammation and other underlying dysfunctions of aging, for example. Or frailty involves significant dysfunction in the <a href="https://en.wiki…
Applying Mendelian Randomization to Support a Causal Relationship Between Frailty and Dementia
Mining human epidemiological data can only produce correlations. Mendelian randomization is a way to add data on genetic variants known to affect disease status into the mix so as to add some support for causation. The result isn’t a determination of causation, but in the best case is supportive of that conclusion. Physical frailty is well known to correlate with neurodegeneration, and a range of reasonable hypotheses exist to explain why this is the case. Both emerge from chronic inflammation and other underlying dysfunctions of aging, for example. Or frailty involves significant dysfunction in the <a href="https://en.wiki…