Psoriasis: An oxidative stress
condition
252-253
Correspondence
Dr. Jyothi. R.S. Assistant Professor, Dept of Biochemistry,
Shivamogga Institute of Medocal Sciences Shimoga-577201,
Karnataka, India Email: bjk1976@rediffmail.com
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that has been associated with abnormal lipid metabolism and a high frequency of cardiovascular events. Several studies have attributed the hypertriglyceridaemia and hyperlipoproteinaemia to retinoids, corticosteroids and thiazide diuretics which are used in the treatment of psoriasis. The present study was undertaken to evaluate whether psoriasis per se is associated with an abnormal lipid profile or whether an abnormal lipid profile occurs due to the medications of psoriasis. Efforts were made to find other diseases which were associated with psoriasis.
This study included 20 male and 20 female, moderate to severe psoriatic patients between the age group of 20-50 years. These patients were clinically diagnosed as psoriasis and had not yet received any treatment. These patients were compared with age and sex matched healthy control subjects. We estimated serumlipid profile, Vitamin E, malondialdehyde (MDA), fasting blood sugar and aspartate amino transferase (AST) and alanine amino transferase (ALT) levels in psoriatic patients and in the control subjects by using the “auto analyzer” and spectrophotometric methods. The psoriatic patients presented a significant increase in the serum lipid profile and malondialdehyde levels and a significant decrease in vitamin E levels. They also showed a significant increase in the fasting blood sugar and the AST and ALT levels.
The data which were obtained from the study i.e. increase in serum lipids and malondialdehyde and decrease in Vitamin E levels show an established state of oxidative stress. The increase in fasting blood sugar and AST and ALT levels indicate that psoriasis may be associated with other oxidative conditions like diabetes mellitus and “non specific” liver disease.