People with psoriasis often think the biggest challenge is dealing with itchy, red, and flaky skin.
However, new research suggests the condition may also affect how well people sleep, especially when psoriasis becomes more severe.
The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Rome Campus Biomedico School of Medicine and was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.
Psoriasis is a long-term autoimmune disease. In this condition, the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy skin, causing skin cells to grow much faster than normal.
This leads to thick, scaly patches that may itch, crack, or become painful. Psoriasis affects millions of people worldwide and can have a major impact on physical and emotional wellbeing.
Sleep is another important part of good health. During sleep, the body repairs tissues, strengthens the immune system, and helps the brain process memories and emotions. Poor sleep can increase tiredness, reduce concentration, worsen mood, and even increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes over time.
Doctors have known for many years that people with psoriasis often report poor sleep. It has not always been clear whether this is caused by itching, pain, stress, inflammation, or the severity of the disease itself. The new study tried to answer this question.
The researchers studied 136 adults with psoriasis. Most participants had relatively mild disease, with a median Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, or PASI, score of 2. The PASI score is a tool doctors use to measure how severe psoriasis is by looking at the amount of skin affected and how inflamed the patches are.
The researchers also measured sleep using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, a questionnaire that looks at different parts of sleep, including how long it takes to fall asleep, how well people stay asleep, daytime tiredness, and overall sleep quality.
Overall, participants had only borderline sleep problems when looking at their total sleep score. However, when researchers examined individual parts of sleep, an important pattern appeared.
People with more severe psoriasis, defined as a PASI score of 10 or higher, took longer to fall asleep and experienced much greater daytime problems, such as feeling tired or less able to function during the day.
Even after taking other health factors into account, severe psoriasis remained strongly linked with these specific sleep difficulties.
Interestingly, the overall sleep score was not significantly different between people with mild and severe psoriasis. This suggests that looking only at total sleep quality may hide important sleep problems experienced by patients.
After reviewing the findings, the study highlights the importance of asking patients more detailed questions about sleep rather than relying on a single overall score. The research was relatively small and most participants had mild psoriasis, so larger studies are needed.
Even so, the results suggest that better control of psoriasis may also improve falling asleep and daytime wellbeing. Doctors may wish to include sleep assessments as part of routine psoriasis care to provide more complete treatment.
If you care about skin health, please read studies about top signs of diabetic skin disease, and Mediterranean diet could help lower the skin cancer risk.
For more health information, please see recent studies about eating fish linked to higher risk of skin cancer, and results showing how to combat the effects of aging on your skin.
Source: University of Rome Campus Biomedico School of Medicine.
