Beneath the Surface: Exploring the connections between skin, cardiovascular disorders
Beneath the Surface is a video series in which Joel M. Gelfand, MD, MSCE, Healio Dermatology Chief Medical Editor, discusses hot topics in the field with leading experts.
In the first of a three-part edition honoring Heart Month, Gelfand, who is also the James J. Leyden Professor of Clinical Investigation and professor of dermatology and epidemiology at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, and Brittany Weber, MD, PhD, FACC, FASNC, director of the Cardio-Rheumatology Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, begin a discussion on the role inflammatory diseases have on cardiometabolic disorders.
Weber discussed a study that found women with psoriasis were more likely to have cardiovascular complications such as preeclampsia, eclampsia and cardiac arrhythmias at delivery.
“While we’re still understanding the different immune pathways and how that leads to or promotes cardiovascular disease in this disease itself, we have to recognize that a psoriasis patient does have increased cardiometabolic and traditional risk factors,” Weber said. “We should be treating those, because we know that those traditional risk factors are important.”