medwireNews: People with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) may have an elevated risk for type 2 diabetes that is mediated in part by BMI, researchers report.
These findings are based on an analysis of 408 patients with PsA who attended a clinic in Italy in 2019–2020 and the same number of age- and sex-matched controls without inflammatory diseases. In all, 7.8% of the PsA cohort had type 2 diabetes, compared with 4.4% of the control group, a significant difference (odds ratio [OR]=2.1).
Using univariate logistic regression analyses, Riccardo Meliconi (IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna, Italy) and team found that a number of clinical factors were associated with diabetes risk in PsA patients, including age, PsA duration, BMI, hypercholesterolemia, and arterial hypertension. In multivariate analyses, increasing age (OR=1.1) and BMI (OR=1.2) remained significantly associated with diabetes risk.
These data “support the critical role of adiposity/dysmetabolism in the cardiovascular risk associated with PsA, apparently in contrast with what was observed in [rheumatoid arthritis] where the key player is uncontrolled inflammation,” write the study authors in the Journal of Clinical Rheumatology.
However, they note that average DAS28-CRP in the previous year “showed a trend toward” association with diabetes risk, albeit without reaching statistical significance, “suggesting that incomplete control of inflammation may still have a role, even partial, in the development of [type 2 diabetes]” in people with PsA.
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J Clin Rheumatol 2021; doi:10.1097/RHU.0000000000001706