Psoriasis Ups Heart Attack Risk Significantly For Younger Patients

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Main Category: Eczema / Psoriasis
Also Included In: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Article Date: 11 Oct 2006 - 9:00 PDT

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A patient who suffers from psoriasis and is in his/her thirties is three times more likely to have heart attack, compared to a thirty-year-old healthy individual who does not suffer from psoriasis, say researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.

You can read about this major study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The researchers suggest that the immune abnormalities which cause psoriasis may also play a part in raising heart attack risk. Although other studies had indicated a link between psoriasis and cardiovascular disease, this study seems to provide the most compelling evidence.

Information was gathered about 700,000 British people. The researchers found that 5.13 per 1000 patients with severe psoriasis had had a heart attack, compared to 4.04 per 1000 patients with mild psoriasis, and 3.58 people per 1000 without psoriasis. The researchers factored out such heart attack precursors as hypertension (high blood pressure), smoking and diabetes.

They also found that the older the psoriasis patient is, the lower is his/her increased heart attack risk.

The scientists advised psoriasis patients to do everything they could to maintain a healthy heart.

What is Psoriasis?

It is a dry, scaly skin condition in which cells are produced too quickly. Most skin cells will take around 21-28 days to replace themselves, in psoriasis they only take about 2-6 days. 3% of people suffer from psoriasis globally. Psoriasis usually develops when a person is 11-45 years old.

PSORIASIS IS NOT CONTAGIOUS - YOU CANNOT CATCH IT FROM ANOTHER PERSON

Many psoriasis patients suffer severely from social exclusion and discrimination.

Symptoms

-- Continuous shedding of dead skin cells
-- Both dead and live cells accumulate on the skin surface
-- Often the patient has red, flaky, crusty patches covered with silvery scales, which are shed easily
-- Any part of the body can be affected - most commonly affected areas are the elbows, knees, lower back and the scalp
-- Can cause severe itching and burning

More information on Psoriasis

"Risk of Myocardial Infarction in Patients With Psoriasis"
Joel M. Gelfand, MD, MSCE; Andrea L. Neimann, MD; Daniel B. Shin, BA; Xingmei Wang, MS; David J. Margolis, MD, PhD; Andrea B. Troxel, ScD
JAMA. 2006;296:1735-1741.
Click here to see the article online

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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