Lipid profile in psoriasis patients

Ramesh Marne Bhat, Hyacinth Peter Pinto

Department of Dermatology, Fr Muller Medical College, Kankanady, Mangalore, India

Objective: To compare the lipid profile values of psoriatic patients with those of age and sex-matched nonpsoriatic controls, while providing a review of the literature.
Methods: A total of 20 consecutive patients with chronic plaque psoriasis (18 males and two females) and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy individuals without psoriasis were included as controls in this study. Serum levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein, and high-density lipoprotein were measured after 12 hours of overnight fasting.
Results: The serum levels of total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were found to be higher in both the psoriatic and the control group; thus there were no statistically significant difference between both groups of individuals.
Conclusion: Psoriasis is now emerging as an important systemic disease associated with various comorbid conditions that include diabetes, hypertension, and an abnormal lipid profile as reviewed by various studies. Such comorbid conditions that are linked with psoriasis have been associated with increasing rates of morbidity and mortality. Our study indicated that there was an increase in total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in both patients and controls, indicating that there is an overall increase of these levels in the general population. Therefore, it is important that the lipid profiles of these patients continue to be studied.

Keywords: psoriasis, lipid profile, serum cholesterol, serum triglycerides, serum LDL, serum HDL