We detected evidence for a (negative) genetically causal effect of LDL on bone mineral density (BMD; Table 1). A meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials reported that statin administration increases BMD[50]. Moreover, familial defective apolipoprotein B leads to high LDL and low BMD [51]. We performed two-sample MR using 8 SNPs that were previously curated (in ref. 3; see Supplementary Note), finding modest evidence for a negative causal effect (p=0.04). Because these variants are not likely to have pleiotropic effects, this analysis provides separate evidence for a genetically causal effect. Additional trait pairs with high gcp estimates are discussed in the Supplementary Note.
