Psoriasis and Heart Attack

British scientists have discovered a link between a common skin condition, psoriasis, and the risk of having a heart attack. The results came from a study of over 500,000 psoriasis-free subjects, 125,000 people with mild psoriasis, and 3,800 with severe psoriasis. The information was collected from over 500 family doctors across the UK.

Those with severe psoriasis had 5.13 heart attacks per 1,000, those with mild psoriasis had 4.04 heart attacks per thousand, and the non-psoriatic subjects had an incidence of 3.58 per thousand.

Why is there this link, or comorbidity? The experts think it may be due to the higher immune activity displayed by psoriasis victims. But they say it may also be a survivorship effect: after years of severe psoriasis, patients predisposed to heart attack would be less available as they might have died already. Of course, severe psoriasis is usually treated with methotrexate or cyclosporine, powerful drugs that affect the T-helper cell population in the blood; and the role of T-helper cells in the development of atherosclerosis is well recognized.

Future studies will now concentrate on the possible mechanisms common to both diseases. Meanwhile psoriasis sufferers should be encouraged to aggressively tackle their modifiable cardiovascular risk factors – weight, smoking, fitness, and so on.

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