Psoriasis patients likely to develop Diabetes

New York: According to a recent study published in Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reveals people suffering from psoriasis are at a higher risk of developing Type-2 Diabetes.
Basing on the disease’s severity Psoriasis patients are 64 percent more likely to acquire Diabetes than those without the disease. It is an immune system disease which inflammation causes skin cells to multiply faster than normal which leads to raised red patches covered by silvery scales on the skin’s surface which die after drying.
The researchers estimate that applying the study’s findings to the number of people who have psoriasis worldwide would equate to 125,650 new cases of diabetes attributable to psoriasis per year.
Senior author Joel Gelfand, Professor at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the US said, “The type of inflammation seen in psoriasis is known to promote insulin resistance, and psoriasis and diabetes share similar genetic mutations suggesting a biological basis for the connection between the two conditions we found in our study.”
“We know psoriasis is linked to higher rates of diabetes, but this is the first study to specifically examine how the severity of the disease affects a patient’s risk” he added.
Gelfand and his research team surveyed and analyzed body surface area (BSA) of 8,124 adults with psoriasis and 76,599 adults without psoriasis over four years and the study revealed patients with a BSA of two percent or less had 21 percent higher risk of developing diabetes than those without psoriasis.
This risk increased dramatically in patients with a BSA of 10 per cent or more. They were 64 per cent more likely to develop diabetes than those without the condition, the study showed.