Abstract Objective Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder that has been associated with an increased risk of various cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, the relationship between IBS and cardiovascular events has not been fully established. This study aims to assess the risk of cardiovascular events in IBS patients and investigate the potential genetic correlations. Methods Data from the UK Biobank were used for this study. A total of 502,411 participants assessed at baseline were initially considered, with 36,204 participants excluded due to missing BMI data. Ultimately, 466,207 participants were included for analysis. We applied propensity score matching (PSM) to match 25,483 IBS patients with 25,483 control participants and analyzed the risk of cardiovascular diseases, including AMI, stroke, HF, AF, and hypertension, between the two groups. Results After propensity score matching, IBS patients exhibited a significantly higher risk of hypertension compared to non-IBS patients, with a hazard ratio of 1.16 (95% CI: 1.12-1.20). Additionally, Mendelian randomization analysis showed that IBS exposure had an estimated causal effect on hypertension with b = 0.4269 (P 0.001), suggesting a 42.7% increased risk of hypertension among those exposed to IBS compared to those unexposed. These findings further support IBS as a potential risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. Conclusion This study demonstrates that IBS is significantly associated with an increased risk of hypertension, and provides causal evidence for the relationship between IBS and hypertension. Our findings offer a research foundation for the prevention of cardiovascular disease risk in IBS patients.Flowchart of our study Causal inference of IBS on hypertension
Li et al. (2025) studied this question.