Psoriasis could increase risk of diabetes

A new study has claimed that people with the psoriasis who suffer from itchy, painful plaques on the skin could be at a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
As reported in the Archives of Dermatology, researchers examined the electronic medical records on over half a million people in the UK. Around 108,000 adults had psoriasis, and another 400,000 didn’t have the condition, and all were diabetes-free. It was shown that 3.7 per cent of participants with psoriasis received a diabetes diagnosis during the course of the five-year study, as compared to 3.4 per cent for the other group. For the group of 6,200 adults suffering from severe psoriasis, 6.3 percent were later diagnosed with diabetes.
Researchers claimed that the inflammation present around the body in both psoriasis and type 2 diabetes could indicate a link between the two conditions, perhaps due to psoriasis inducing chronic inflammation through changes in the bloodstream.
Rahat Azfar from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who was lead author on the study, said “We already knew that some of the risk factors for psoriasis and diabetes are similar, like weight. We do think that psoriasis itself makes people at higher risk.”
However, the study does not definitively prove that psoriasis directly causes diabetes, and more research is needed to reveal if treatments for psoriasis could have an effect on the potential development of the metabolic condition.