Psoriasis and Risk for New Onset Diabetes
Inflammatory disorders like rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriasis (PSOR) have recently been confirmed to be risk factors for adverse cardiovascular (CV) events, although the precise pathways through which such risk occurs remain controversial. Some have even gone so far as to say that RA should be considered an independent CV risk factor of equal potency to the already registered risk factors like hypertension, history of premature cardiovascular death, etc. Since PSOR and RA share common inflammatory pathways, it’s perhaps not surprising that both are associated with CV adversity.
To date, the relationship between PSOR and diabetes mellitus (DM) has been controversial. Since DM is a major contributor to CV events, if PSOR and DM are related, that would account for some of the increased CV risk.
Khalid et al report on an analysis of the PSOR-DM relationship discerned through a 12-year follow-up of Danish persons ≥10 years (n = 4,614,807). They studied the incidence of new-onset DM in PSOR subjects vs controls. A graded linear association between PSOR and new onset DM was found. Compared to the reference population, the incidence of DM in persons with mild PSOR was almost doubled, and in severe PSOR, nearly tripled.