Work

A twentieth-century shift in psoriasis age at onset toward a metabolically associated phenotype

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Psoriasis, long regarded as a chronic immune-mediated skin disorder, is now recognized as a systemic inflammatory disease linked to metabolic dysfunction. Whether this link is intrinsic to the disease or a consequence of recent environmental change bears on how psoriasis is understood. We reconstructed the epidemiology of psoriasis from the early twentieth century onward, combining archival and citation-chain searches, logistic-growth modeling of historical prevalence, and Gaussian-mixture modeling of reconstructed age-at-onset data from pre- and post-World War II cohorts. Before the war, psoriasis arose in adolescents and young adults without metabolic comorbidity; over subsequent decades the age-at-onset distribution shifted toward older ages, and a middle-age-onset group associated with cardiometabolic disease became prominent, paralleling the population-wide rise of metabolic disease. We found no robust evidence that psoriasis itself became more frequent. These observational, hypothesis-generating findings are consistent with a shared environmental contribution to psoriasis and metabolic disease.

Source: iScience

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.117867

Authors: Robert Gniadecki, Aldona Pietrzak, Agnieszka Owczarczyk-Saczonek, Mohammed Osman

Institutions: University of Alberta, Medical University of Lublin, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

Language: English

Topic: Psoriasis: Treatment and Pathogenesis

Subfield: Immunology

Field: Immunology and Microbiology

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,240