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• Posted November 27, 2024

Ultraprocessed Foods Might Help Trigger Psoriasis

Ultraprocessed foods have been linked to a myriad of health issues, and a new study suggests that the autoimmune skin disease psoriasis might be added to that list.

"Results of this study showed an association between high ultraprocessed food intake and active psoriasis status," concluded a team led by Dr. Emilie Sbidian, a dermatologist at the Henri-Mondor Hospital in Créteil, France.

Her team published its findings Nov. 27 in JAMA Dermatology.

Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from substances extracted from whole foods, like saturated fats, starches and added sugars. They also contain a wide variety of additives to make them more tasty, attractive and shelf-stable, including colors, emulsifiers, flavors and stabilizers.

Examples include packaged baked goods, sugary cereals, ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat products, and deli cold cuts.

As Sbidian's team noted, high intake of ultraprocessed food "has been associated with various diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and inflammatory bowel disease."

To see if these foods have any influence on psoriasis, Sbidian and colleagues looked at records for more than 18,500 people taking part in a major French health database. Data came from late 2021 through mid-2022.

A total of 1,825 people had psoriasis and in 802 cases, the disease was considered "active."  

Among other questions, people were asked about their intake of ultraprocessed foods in grams per day. 

After adjusting for other psoriasis risk factors, people with active disease were 36% more likely to place within the highest third of daily ultraprocessed food intake, compared to folks who'd never had psoriasis, the researchers found.

The study couldn't prove cause-and-effect, it could only show an association. 

However, the finding held even after the French team factored out age, alcohol intake, body mass index (an estimate of fat based on height and weight), and other illnesses. That suggests that ultraprocessed foods' link to psoriasis could go beyond the foods' association with obesity, Sbidian and colleagues said.

More information

Find out more about psoriasis at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

SOURCE: JAMA Dermatology, Nov. 27, 2024