Considering the relatively large proportion of prostate cancer history among ED subjects in our analysis (17.8%, compared to 5.3% in the control group in EUR; 16%, compared to 1.9% in the controls group in AFR), it is plausible that inclusion of prostate cancer subjects could affect the results; for example, some of the genes we identified in this study, ESR1 and CASC19, are genome-wide significantly associated with prostate cancer too58–61,70,72,101, and therefore our results may be driven in part by these associations. This evidence concerns the gene ESR1 and prostate carcinoma.