Short Course: Could shedding extra pounds improve psoriasis?

Losing weight may ease psoriasis and improve quality of life for some overweight people with the chronic skin disease

Could shedding extra pounds improve psoriasis?

NEW YORK: Losing weight may ease psoriasis and improve quality of life for some overweight people with the chronic skin disease,new research from Denmark suggests. But the trial may have been too small to fully flesh out that link,and researchers said future studies will have to follow larger groups of patients for more time to make definitive conclusions. The results,I would say,are promising, said Dr Joel Gelfand,a dermatologist from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Psoriasis is characterised by itchy,painful plaques on the skin.

Over the years,researchers have learned that obese people are more likely to develop psoriasis than their thinner peers and tend to have more severe disease. That could be due to more body-wide inflammation among people carrying around extra fat. REUTERS

Painkillers can increase risk of heart attack

LONDON: High doses of two common painkillers,used by millions of Indians,taken over a long period of time may increase the risk of heart attack,Oxford researchers have warned. The study on more than 3,50,000 patients taking prescription doses of such medications found the chance of a heart attack or stroke rose by almost 40 per cent. The study found the increased risk of cardiac side-effects from ibuprofen was similar to those of another arthritis drug,Vioxx,which was withdrawn from the market almost a decade ago when research had suggested it might double the risk of heart attacks,The Telegraph reported. The research,published in The Lancet,found that for every 1,000 people with a moderate risk of heart disease,around eight would normally have a heart attack or stroke each year. PTI