Children with psoriasis may also be obese

• Tweet

CHICAGO, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Children with the skin disease psoriasis are about twice as likely to be overweight or obese as children who don't have the disease, U.S. researchers said.

Lead author Dr. Amy Paller of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and pediatric dermatologist at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago said U.S. children with psoriasis have much higher odds than psoriatic children in other countries of being obese or overweight.

The study, published in the Archives of Dermatology, found U.S. children with psoriasis had four times the odds of being overweight or obese as healthy controls.

"Within this U.S. population, Hispanics and African-American children had significantly greater rates of being obese and overweight than whites and Asians," the study authors wrote in the study. "The odds ratio of being obese were particularly high for U.S. children with more severe psoriasis."