Long-Term Risk for Incident Psoriasis Elevated With Irritable Bowel Syndrome

TUESDAY, Aug. 18, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have an increased risk for incident psoriasis, according to a study published online Aug. 7 in the Journal of Global Health.

Yuting Qiu, from Capital Medical University in Beijing, and colleagues retrieved data on 437,170 participants from the U.K. Biobank without psoriasis at baseline to examine the long-term risk for incident psoriasis among individuals with IBS. Overall, 5.0 percent of the participants had IBS.

The researchers identified 4,325 (1.0 percent) incident psoriasis cases during a median follow-up of 14.4 years, with a cumulative incidence of 0.88 and 0.69 percent in the IBS and non-IBS groups, respectively. Patients with IBS had a significantly higher risk for developing psoriasis compared with patients without IBS (hazard ratio, 1.35). A higher psoriasis risk associated with IBS was generally seen in subgroup analyses across age, sex, Townsend deprivation index, smoking status, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use, C-reactive protein, and the polygenic risk score of psoriasis subgroups.

“Our study underscores the importance of monitoring for psoriasis in patients with IBS and suggests shared pathophysiological mechanisms between the two conditions,” the authors write. “Further research in ethnically and geographically diverse populations is still warranted to validate these results and elucidate the underlying biological pathways.”

Abstract/Full Text