Efficacy of food supplement to improve metabolic syndrome parameters in patients affected by moderate to severe psoriasis during anti-TNFα treatment.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Selenium and Vitamin E in the context of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Psoriasis is a systemic inflammatory immune-mediated skin disease.

Recently a relationship with metabolic syndrome in terms of psoriasis severity and response to therapy was observed.

The researchers performed an open-label randomized controlled study to evaluate the role of a nutraceutical containing Q10 coenzyme, Krill-oil, lipoic acid, resveratrol, Vitis vinifera seed oil, vitamin E and selenium in addition to etanercept therapy for patients affected by psoriasis and metabolic syndrome.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Forty patients were enrolled and divided into two arms, one receiving only etanercept, one other receiving also the neutraceutical.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and open-label.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Selenium group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Everyone knew when Selenium was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Antioxidants, Biomarkers, Body Mass Index, Cholesterol, HDL, Dietary Fats, Unsaturated, Dietary Supplements and Etanercept.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and open-label study of Selenium and Vitamin E in people with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

Results are reported in around 2 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2013 (Giornale italiano di dermatologia e venereologia : organo ufficiale, Societa italiana di dermatologia e sifilografia), a journal based in Italy.

More context: Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis research.