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Abstract
Observational studies on smoking and risk of hay fever and asthma have shown inconsistent results. We assessed whether the relationship between smoking and asthma/allergy was likely to be causal by looking at associations between a smoking related genetic variant, rs16969968/rs1051730, and asthma and allergy. We used data from UK Biobank and from 21 further studies. Having more smoking increasing alleles at rs16969968/rs1051730 was associated with higher risk of asthma but lower risk of hay fever and allergic sensitization. This provides some evidence that smoking may increase asthma but may protect against allergy.