Heart disease more likely in people with psoriasis: study

People who suffer from psoriasis may want to pay extra attention to heart risks, since they may be at a greater risk for blocked arteries than those who don't have the skin disease - although the risk increase is not that high, according to a U.S. study. And the longer patients have psoriasis, the higher their risks are, said researchers, whose findings were published in the American Journal of Cardiology. "One of the things that we've come to understand is that psoriasis is not a disease that's just limited to the skin," said April Armstrong of the University of California, Davis, who worked on the study. Armstrong and her colleagues used records of patients who had undergone a heart scan called coronary angiography to compare the results of patients with and without psoriasis. Armstrong said that while the study did not prove that the condition causes heart disease, the skin rash may be a sign that there is inflammation inside the body, too