Depression Linked to Inflammation in Women With Psoriasis

In women with psoriasis, current depressive symptoms appear to be associated with systemic inflammation in the form of increased neutrophil counts, according to study findings published online in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. The association was not present in men.

“These sex effects align with previous reports on C-reactive protein (CRP), both in psoriasis and the general population,” wrote corresponding author Georgia Lada, MD of the University of Manchester in England and coauthors in a letter to the editor. “Higher systemic inflammation is consistently found in women, may be linked to hormonal physiology and visceral adiposity, and predicts poorer antidepressant outcomes in females. Interestingly, however, we did not find similar results for CRP.”

The study included 5485 patients with psoriasis from the UK Biobank, a population-based cohort of middle age and older adults. Researchers looked for associations of current and lifetime depression with neutrophil count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and high-sensitivity CRP in patients with psoriasis.

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Analysis revealed no associations between CRP or neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio with current or lifetime depression in patients with psoriasis. CRP was significantly associated with depression, however, when researchers omitted body mass index from models, researchers reported.

The association between increased neutrophil count and current depression, even after accounting for lifetime depression, and was significant only in women, the study found. In both women and men, lifetime depression was associated with higher neutrophil counts.

“[T]he observed associations and their independence of lifestyle factors, comorbidities, and treatment-based psoriasis severity are suggestive of underlying immunological relationships with mood, particularly among women,” researchers advised. “It is important to elucidate further these associations in psoriasis through large prospective studies including multiple inflammatory markers.”

Reference

Lada G, Chinoy H, Talbot PS, Warren RB, Kleyn CE. The relationship of depression and systemic inflammation in psoriasis; findings from the UK Biobank. J Invest Dermatol. Published online December 22, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.jid.2022.11.021