Skin Condition Raises Heart Attack Death Risk

A common skin condition that is estimated to affect 125 million people worldwide, psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory condition that causes a build-up of psoriatic plaque. In that heart attacks are also caused by a build-up of plaque, located in the arteries leading to the heart, Ole Ahlehoff, from Copenhagen University (Denmark), and colleagues explored the links between the two conditions and similar inflammatory mechanisms.  The team studied nearly 50,000 patients who had experienced their first heart attack between 2002 and 2006, following the 462 patients with psoriasis for an average of 19.5 months and the 48,935 controls for an average of 22 months. The researchers found that heart attack patients with psoriasis were 26% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, or suffer from recurrent heart attacks or strokes, and were 18% more likely to die from all causes than those without the inflammatory skin disease.  Observing that: “Psoriasis is associated with increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality,” the team concludes that: “Patients with psoriasis may be candidates for early cardiovascular risk factor modification.”