69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Investigative Dermatology; Montreal, Canada: 6–9 May 2009
MedWire News: Patients with psoriasis who are also overweight are at increased risk of developing psoriatic arthritis, study findings reveal.
Kristina Callis Duffin (University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA) told delegates at the annual meeting of the Society for Investigative Dermatology in Montreal, Canada, that for every unit increase in body mass index (BMI), the risk of psoriatic arthritis increases by 5.4%.
In previous research, Duffin and colleagues found that psoriasis patients were more likely to be overweight and obese than the general population and that psoriasis tended to occur before obesity developed.
For their current analysis of data from the Utah Psoriasis Initiative from November 2002 to October 2008, the researchers looked at the risk of psoriatic arthritis among 943 patients with psoriasis. At the age of 18 years, 14.1% of the patients were classified as overweight (BMI 25–30 kg/m2) and 5.0% as obese (>30 kg/m2).
A total of 250 patients went on to develop psoriatic arthritis and analysis showed that the risk of developing the condition was increased 1.54 fold among psoriasis patients were overweight at the age of 18 years and 2.5 fold for those who were obese.
Duffin also noted that psoriasis patients who were overweight or obese developed psoriatic arthritis earlier than psoriasis patients of a healthy weight.
The researchers believe that, as increased adiposity is associated with higher levels of inflammatory cytokines known to be involved in psoriasis, this ‘inflammatory milieu’ could increase the risk of psoriatic arthritis.
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