|
 Researchers in Australia found that kids with psoriasis aged 5 to 16
years had higher waist-to-height ratios but did not differ from
peers in rates of obesity or metabolic syndrome – a cluster of risk
factors for diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
As many as 7.5 million Americans, including children, may have the
autoimmune skin disease psoriasis, which can be difficult to treat,
according to the National Psoriasis Foundation.
Lead author Andrew Lee of the department of dermatology at Royal
North Shore Hospital in St. Leonards, New South Wales, and coauthors
studied 208 children recruited from a pediatric dermatology clinic
and two private consultant rooms of specialist dermatologists.
Of the 110 girls and 98 boys, 135 had psoriasis and the remaining 73
had other noninflammatory skin conditions.
The researchers considered a waist circumference that was equal to
or more than half a child’s height to be high. And based on waist
and height measurements of the participants, 29 percent of kids with
psoriasis had a high waist-to-height ratio compared to 11 percent of
those without psoriasis, according to the results in JAMA
Dermatology.
Lee did not respond to a request for comment, but the authors point
out that adults with psoriasis are already known to have increased
risk of heart disease, and of metabolic syndrome, whose symptoms
include excess fat around the waist.
Other metabolic syndrome symptoms include low levels of HDL, the
“good” cholesterol; high levels of triglycerides, a “bad” blood fat;
and elevated blood sugar levels.
“We know that being overweight or obese is a risk factor for
developing psoriasis,” said Dr. Megha M. Tollefson of the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not part of the new study.
“Being overweight or obese is also a risk factor for many other
conditions, including metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular
disease.”
It’s hard to say exactly how “dangerous” an elevated waist-to-height
ratio is, Tollefson told Reuters Health by email.
[to top of second column] |
“But, studies have shown children with increased WtHR even if not
obese to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and metabolic
disease, thus these children likely need closer follow-up and
possibly monitoring,” she said.
“In children, it seems that the obesity likely comes before the
psoriasis, but it also may be that people with psoriasis who do not
have obesity are also at some risk for health issues that we
typically think to be related to obesity,” she said.
Parents of children with psoriasis should pay extra attention to
maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including promoting exercise and a
healthy well-balanced diet, she said.
“There are no formal recommendations at this time to screen children
with psoriasis any different than children without psoriasis, but it
is appropriate to consider closer monitoring and also to more
proactively discuss healthy lifestyle with the child and his or her
parents,” she said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2dKHIDj JAMA Dermatology, online September 28,
2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
