Takeaway
- Patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (AD) had overrepresentation of the metabolic syndrome and its components (obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and diabetes).
- Findings suggest that severely-affected patients with AD should be screened for metabolic syndrome.
Why this matters
- The councilors of the International Eczema Council recently suggested that AD is associated with overrepresentation of several metabolic disorders.
- However, data regarding the association between AD and metabolic syndrome are controversial.
Study design
- This cross-sectional study included 116,816 patients with AD and 116,812 age- and sex-matched control individuals.
- The association between AD and metabolic syndrome, its components, and possible complications in the entire population, adults (ages, >18 years; n=45,157) and adults with moderate to severe AD (n=1909) was evaluated.
- Funding: None.
Key results
- Patients with AD had higher prevalence of dyslipidaemia and lower prevalence of diabetes and metabolic syndrome (P<.001 for all).
- Compared with the control group, patients with moderate and severe AD had higher prevalence rates of (P<.001 for all):
- metabolic syndrome (17.0% vs 9.4%)
- obesity (22.2% vs 18.6%)
- diabetes (15.9% vs 9.2%)
- hypertension (27.9% vs 15.3%)
- dyslipidaemia (47.1% vs 28.5%)
- cardiovascular morbidity
- ischaemic heart disease (9.3% vs 5.1%)
- congestive heart failure (2.7% vs 1.2%)
- prior stroke (4.4% vs 2.4%)
- peripheral vascular disease (3.0% vs 1.2%).
- After adjustment for potential confounders, consistent results were observed.
Limitations
- Risk of incidence-prevalence bias and temporal bias.
References
References