Morning plasma cortisol as a cardiovascular risk factor: findings from prospective cohort and Mendelian randomization studies

Objective The identification of new causal risk factors has the potential to improve cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction and the development of new treatments to reduce CVD deaths. In the general population, we sought to determine whether cortisol is a causal risk factor for CVD and coronary heart disease (CHD). Design and methods Three approaches were adopted to investigate the association between cortisol and CVD/CHD. First, we used...