Higher adiponectin, an adipocyte-secreted protein hormone with inflammatory properties, does not causally increase the risk of developing asthma, though it is generally observed to have a potential role to develop and progress the disease. In a recent study, published in Thorax, the researchers found that there is no genetic evidence to support a causal association between plasma adiponectin and asthma. 

The research, which explored whether the hypothesis that plasma adiponectin is associated both observationally and causally with risk of asthma, using genetic variants as instrumental variables, concluded that a genetic meta-analysis confirmed lack of association between genetically high plasma adiponectin and asthma as a casual trigger. 

The new study, analysed 28,845 individuals from the Copenhagen general population with plasma adiponectin measurements and agenetic one-sample Mendelian randomisation of 94,868 individuals with 4 genetic variants, along with another Mendelian randomisation analysis of 4,62,933 individuals from the UK biobank with 12 genetic variants, to reach their conclusions.