TNF and atherosclerosis: Considering how IBD disease activity might influence the development of ASCVD, we further gathered some inflammatory factors (e.g., C-reactive protein and TNF-α) that reflect IBD disease activity [34,35], and some other common risk factors of ASCVD (e.g., body mass index [BMI], smoking initiation, alcohol consumption, and type 2 diabetes), into the univariate MR analysis, to identify potential factors causally associated with ASCVD.