Bell S, Gibson JT, Harshfield EL, et al. - Given that periodontitis and cardiovascular disease are linked in observational studies, researchers assessed if periodontitis is causally related to stroke, coronary artery disease, or subclinical atherosclerosis via Mendelian randomization. A two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis was performed using five single nucleotide polymorphisms previously linked with periodontitis in genome-wide association studies. Summary data have been collected from MEGASTROKE and combined with de novo analyses of UK Biobank for stroke and its major subtypes (up to 44,221 cases, 739,957 controls) and CARDIoGRAMplusC4D and UK Biobank for coronary artery disease (122,733 cases, 424,528 controls). According to results, there was no connection between periodontitis and any stroke, ischemic stroke or any major subtypes, or coronary artery disease. Similarly, no link was identified between periodontitis and subclinical atherosclerosis. This indicates that associations identified in observational studies may represent confounding.