Psoriasis patients 'at higher risk of death following heart attack'
Monday 12th September 2011
Psoriasis patients are at a higher risk of death after a heart attack than the average person, research has shown.
A study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine revealed that heart attack patients with psoriasis have a 26 per cent higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease or experiencing recurrent heart attacks and strokes.
Furthermore, these individuals are 18 per cent more likely to die from all causes than people who do not have the skin condition.
Baseline measurements also showed that those with psoriasis had a higher rate of hospitalisation for stable and/or unstable angina.
In addition, these patients were more commonly treated with statins and ACE inhibitors or angiotensin 2 receptor blockers.
Furthermore, psoriasis patients who survived their first heart attack were more likely to receive statin therapy than those who did not have the inflammatory condition.
However, authors said that conflicting health issues and differences in treatment did not explain the worse prognosis in psoriasis patients.
Lead author, Dr Ole Ahlehoff, of Copenhagen University Hospital, said: "Our findings show that people with psoriasis demonstrated a significantly increased risk of recurring adverse cardiovascular events and a trend for increased all-cause deaths after a heart attack.
"Furthermore, the poor prognosis faced by psoriasis patients who have had a heart attack suggests the need for a more aggressive approach to secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in this group of patients."
In other news, menopausal hormones do not increase risk of death from cardiovascular conditions, according to research published in the British Medical Journal.
Authors from Johns Hopkins University believe that the process of ageing itself, rather than the menopause, causes an increase in cardiovascular death among older women.
Moreover, researchers observed that cardiovascular deaths do not spike after menopause, but increase with age - contradicting previous research.
Written by Angela Newbury
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