NEWSWEEK – New research from France has found a link between the skin condition psoriasis and eating a higher quantity of ultra-processed food (UPF).
Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune disease, which means it is caused by the overactivity of the immune system attacking normal tissues in the body.
It can look a bit like eczema, causing patches of the skin to turn another color—such as red, pink or purple—or become dry, itchy and scaly.
A study published on Wednesday found a significant association between active psoriasis and a higher intake of ultra-processed food, even after adjusting for other factors such as body weight, age, sex, smoking status, physical activity and alcohol consumption.
“The study is a cross-sectional study in a French cohort, where participants who have never had psoriasis are compared with those who have active psoriasis and those who have had psoriasis but it is not currently active in terms of their dietary intakes of ultra-processed foods,” said Professor Wendy Hall, from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London, U.K., in a statement.
“This study can only tell us if diet is associated with a health outcome, not the direction of the effect…nor if diet is actually causing a health outcome.”
She said this type of study was useful, but did not yield strong enough evidence for informing dietary guidelines.
The authors of the study themselves noted that further, larger-scale studies were needed to investigate the role of ultra-processed food intake in the onset of psoriasis symptoms.
In this study, French scientists used data from the Nutri-Net-Santé cohort study, collected from 2021 to 2022, involving more than 18,500 participants aged 15 or older.
Of those participants, more than 1,800 had been diagnosed with psoriasis, and just over 800 had active psoriasis, meaning they were currently experiencing symptoms.
The scientists found that people with active psoriasis were more likely to be in the maximum ultra-processed food category …
