Identifying causal associations between early sexual intercourse or number of sexual partners and major depressive disorders: A bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis

Abstract

Background: Early sexual intercourse and a greater number of sexual partners have been proved associated with depression. However, the causality of these associations is not clear.

Methods: To unveil the causal associations between sexual factors and major depression disorder (MDD). The bidirectional, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was conducted, which used genetic variants associated with two sexual factors (age first had sexual intercourse, n = 406,457; lifetime number of sexual partners, n = 378,882) and MDD (n = 500,199) from the largest genome-wide association studies (GWASs) conducted by the UK biobank and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. The two-step MR analysis was applied to assess mediation. The Genetic predictors for five risky behaviors were also obtained from the most up-to-date GWAS conducted by the UK Biobank (ever self-harmed: 117,733; ever attempted suicide: 4933; psychoactive substance abuse, alcohol use, and tobacco use: 463,010).

Results: MR analysis indicated a risky causal effect of age first had sexual intercourse (OR = 0.720, 95 % CI: 0.661-0.784, P = 2.45 × 10^-14) and lifetime number of sexual partners (OR = 1.656, 95 % CI: 1.356-2.022, P = 7.46 × 10^-7) on MDD. Mediation analysis showed the effects were mediated by tobacco use, with a proportion of 34.20 % on age first had sexual intercourse and 22.94 % on lifetime number of sexual partners separately.

Limitations: The overlap of participants in different traits and unclear gender.

Conclusions: Robust genetic evidence indicated that premature sexual intercourse and more sexual partners were risks for MDD. Risky behaviors, especially the tobacco use, mediated this effect.

Keywords: Major depression disorder; Mediation; Mendelian randomization analysis; Sexual factors; Tobacco use.