Link between psoriasis and hypertension found

Patients with severe psoriasis are more likely to have uncontrolled hypertension, according to a new research.
Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania through a cross-sectional study using information collected from a medical records database, provided evidence of a strong link between psoriasis and hypertension.
"Over the last several years, studies have shown that psoriasis, specifically severe psoriasis, is an independent risk factor for a variety of comorbidities, putting patients suffering with this common skin disease at an increased risk for other conditions such as heart attack and stroke," said Junko Takeshita, co-first author on the study.

"Knowing that psoriasis is tied to other health conditions, it's vital that we have a better understanding of the systemic effects it has on other areas of the body so that we can more closely monitor these patients and provide better and preventative care," said Takeshita, clinical instructor in the department of Dermatology at Penn Medicine.
Defining uncontrolled hypertension as blood pressure measured as at least 140/90, the researchers found a clear relationship between psoriasis and uncontrolled hypertension in patients with a confirmed diagnosis of psoriasis.
Additional finding indicated there is a significant dose-response relationship, meaning that the likelihood of uncontrolled hypertension increases with greater psoriasis severity.

Results of the study found that the patients with the highest risk of having uncontrolled blood pressure, are those with moderate to severe psoriasis, which is defined as having at least three per cent of one's body surface affected by the disease.

Takeshita and colleagues examined data from a random sample of psoriasis patients included in The Health Improvement Network (THIN), an electronic medical database based in the UK that collects demographic, diagnostic, treatment, and laboratory information from a broad representative sample of the UK population.
The researchers concentrated on a specific group within the THIN database called the Incident Health Outcomes and Psoriasis Events (iHOPE) cohort, a random sample of about 9,000 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of psoriasis and disease severity classified by their general practitioners using objective measures, specifically body surface area involvement.

The study is published in the journal JAMA Dermatology.