Adults with psoriasis are under an increased risk of having a heart attack, reveals a new study.
Psoriasis is an immune-mediated disease (conditions which result from abnormal activity of the body's immune system ) which affects the skin. It commonly causes red scaly patches to appear on the skin. The scaly patches often called psoriasis plaques, are areas of excessive skin cell production and inflammation.
Affecting the healthy body tissues, these immune system disorders cause chronic inflammation, which in turn causes accumulation of artery clogging cholesterol in the arteries which thereby hardens them. This increases the risk of heart disease and strokes. The disease affects 2 percent to 3 percent of the adult population in the United States.
The study conducted by the researchers at the University of Pennsylvania compared heart attack rates of more than 130,000 adults with psoriasis with the rates of about 500,000 patients who did not have it. Of the 130000 affected patients, 125000 were mild suffers of the disorder while the rest reported severe symptoms.
Alarming stats uncovered by the researchers affirm that individuals who were younger and had more severe disease suffered the highest relative risk.
A patient about 30 years old with severe symptoms of psoriasis faced three times the risk of suffering a heart attack than someone of a similar age without psoriasis, whereas, a 60-year-old was 36 percent more likely.
On the other hand, a patient reporting mild symptoms of the disorder stood 29 percent more chances of having a heart attack if he ages around 30, while a 60 year old stands 8 percent risk, revealed researchers.
Lead researcher Dr. Joel Gelfand, assistant professor of dermatology at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine, in Philadelphia confirmed, “The potential is there for someone who has severe psoriasis who is in their 50s or 40s, of having a heart attack.”
Giving details of the study Gelfand said, “People with psoriasis have a bigger tendency to smoke, be obese, have high blood pressure and other things we know are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The thing we've done, which hadn't been done before for psoriasis, was to control for these risk factors. We found that psoriasis still increases the risk of having a heart attack."
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