Bariatric Surgery Patients Had Improved Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Symptoms

Patients who had bariatric surgery and lost weight were likely to also see improvement in symptoms of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, researchers report at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.

Soumya Reddy, MD, co-director of the NYU Langone Psoriatic Arthritis Center in New York City and colleagues said "Our new study shows that those who shed excess eight could see significant symptom relief. The findings are due to be reported Nov. 8 at the meeting.

Reddy and colleagues reviewed the medical charts of 9,073 weight-loss surgery patients treated at the hospital from 2002 to 2013. Of those 83 patients had psoriasis and 21 also had psoriatic arthritis.

Each patient had an average weight loss of 46.2 percent of body weight.

The team reports that 55% of the psoriasis patients and 62% of those with psoriatic arthritis reported their disease had improved. The researchers believe that the patients' psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis were liked triggered by fat tissue-driven system inflammation.

Using a 0 to 10 rating scale, psoriasis scores in the study group dropped from 5.6 to 4.4 and psoriatic arthritis scores fell from 6.4 to 4.5.