07.28.23
Vitamin D levels and non-alcoholic wine may hold benefits for psoriasis and skin elasticity, respectively according to recent studies that were presented this week at American Society for Nutrition’s flagship meeting this week.
The analysis showed a linear relationship between increasing psoriasis severity and decreasing vitamin D levels measured through blood tests.
“Topical synthetic vitamin D creams are emerging as new therapies for psoriasis, but these usually require a doctor’s prescription,” said Rachel K. Lim, an MD candidate at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “Our results suggest that a vitamin D-rich diet or oral vitamin D supplementation may also provide some benefit to psoriasis patients.”
Lim presented the findings at Nutrition 2023, organized by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN). The event was held from July 22-25 in Boston.
The research team was led by Eunyoung Cho, ScD, an associate professor in the Department of Dermatology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University who studies the role of nutrition and environmental factors in skin cancer and inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis. Vitamin D is thought to influence the development of skin diseases by affecting the body’s immune response and through direct effects on the cells involved in skin repair.
“With growing public interest in vitamin supplementation, we wanted to further examine the connection between vitamin D levels and psoriasis severity,” said Cho. “Few studies have looked for this association in groups of people, especially in large US populations, or examined this relationship through a clinical nutrition lens.”
For the new study, the researchers identified 491 psoriasis cases from more than 40,000 NHANES participants, with 162 cases from 2003-2006 and 329 from 2011-2014. They also extracted data on vitamin D levels, self-reported psoriasis-affected body surface area and other factors including age, gender, race, body mass index, and smoking status.
After adjusting for lifestyle factors such as smoking, the analysis showed that lower vitamin D levels and vitamin D deficiency were significantly associated with greater psoriasis severity. The researchers also found that patients with the least amount of body surface affected by psoriasis had the highest average vitamin D levels while those with the greatest affected area had the lowest average levels of vitamin D.
“Only one previous study, published in 2013, has used NHANES data to analyze the relationship between vitamin D and psoriasis,” said Lim. “We were able to add more recent data, which more than tripled the number of psoriasis cases analyzed, making our results more up-to-date and statistically powerful than previously available data.”
Although dietary vitamin D toxicity is rare, the researchers advise people with psoriasis to consult their physicians and dermatologists before taking supplements.
Lim presented during the Micronutrients, Supplements and Chronic Disease Mechanisms Poster Theater Flash Session.
“Muscadine grapes have been found to have a unique polyphenolic profile in comparison to other red wine varieties,” said Lindsey Christman, PhD, who conducted the research with Liwei Gu, PhD, professor of food chemistry and functional food at the University of Florida. “Our study suggests that muscadine wine polyphenols have potential to improve skin conditions, specifically elasticity and transepidermal water loss, in middle aged and older women.”
Muscadine grapes are native to the Southeastern United States and are commonly used to make wine. Previous clinical trials have suggested that polyphenols found in muscadine wine including anthocyanins, quercetin, and ellagic acid can help to decrease inflammation and oxidative stress.
For the study, researchers recruited 17 women age 40-67 and randomly assigned them to drink either dealcoholized wine or a placebo beverage that looked and tasted similar but did not contain polyphenols. Participants consumed 300 milliliters or about 10 ounces (the equivalent of two glasses of wine) of their assigned beverage daily for six weeks, then took a three-week break before switching to the opposite beverage for six weeks.
Researchers measured participants’ skin conditions and markers of inflammation and oxidative stress at the start of the study and at the end of each six-week period. They found that drinking muscadine wine significantly improved skin elasticity (a loss of elasticity is what causes skin to sag more as we age). In addition, the wine was associated with a decrease in water loss at the skin surface, a measurement that indicates the skin is providing a more effective barrier against damage.
The researchers did not see any significant difference in the amount of wrinkles on the skin. Participants showed improvements in skin smoothness and less evidence of inflammation and oxidative stress compared to baseline, but there was not a significant difference in these factors between dealcoholized muscadine wine and the placebo.
“This cross-over study demonstrated that six weeks of dealcoholized muscadine wine consumption resulted in improvement of certain skin parameters associated with aging, such as elasticity on the forearm and barrier function of the skin on the face, when compared to baseline and placebo,” said Christman. “This is likely due to decreases in inflammation and oxidative stress.”
Since the trial involved only 17 participants, repeating the study with a larger and more diverse group of people would help to confirm and strengthen the findings. In addition, most commercially-available muscadine wine contains alcohol, and researchers cautioned that drinking wine with alcohol may produce a different result.
“We used dealcoholized muscadine wine because we were interested in the effect of the bioactive compounds in wine, specifically the polyphenols, on skin health,” said Christman. “Alcohol would add another variable to the study that may cause the effects to be different. In addition, the dealcholization process may alter the chemical composition.”
Christman presented during the Aging and Chronic Disease Poster Session at the ASN event in Boston.
Nutrition is the flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, an educational event for nutritional professionals that brings together lab scientists, practicing clinicians, population health researchers, and community intervention investigators to identify solutions to nutrition challenges. The audience also includes rising leaders in the field, such as undergraduate, graduate and medical students. ASN was founded in 1928. The society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition.
Vitamin D and Psoriasis
More than eight million people in the US experience psoriasis, a condition in which skin cells build up and form itchy dry patches. A person’s vitamin D levels could play an important role in psoriasis severity, according to one of the largest studies to date. The analysis included almost 500 psoriasis cases from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).The analysis showed a linear relationship between increasing psoriasis severity and decreasing vitamin D levels measured through blood tests.
“Topical synthetic vitamin D creams are emerging as new therapies for psoriasis, but these usually require a doctor’s prescription,” said Rachel K. Lim, an MD candidate at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “Our results suggest that a vitamin D-rich diet or oral vitamin D supplementation may also provide some benefit to psoriasis patients.”
Lim presented the findings at Nutrition 2023, organized by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN). The event was held from July 22-25 in Boston.
The research team was led by Eunyoung Cho, ScD, an associate professor in the Department of Dermatology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University who studies the role of nutrition and environmental factors in skin cancer and inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis. Vitamin D is thought to influence the development of skin diseases by affecting the body’s immune response and through direct effects on the cells involved in skin repair.
“With growing public interest in vitamin supplementation, we wanted to further examine the connection between vitamin D levels and psoriasis severity,” said Cho. “Few studies have looked for this association in groups of people, especially in large US populations, or examined this relationship through a clinical nutrition lens.”
For the new study, the researchers identified 491 psoriasis cases from more than 40,000 NHANES participants, with 162 cases from 2003-2006 and 329 from 2011-2014. They also extracted data on vitamin D levels, self-reported psoriasis-affected body surface area and other factors including age, gender, race, body mass index, and smoking status.
After adjusting for lifestyle factors such as smoking, the analysis showed that lower vitamin D levels and vitamin D deficiency were significantly associated with greater psoriasis severity. The researchers also found that patients with the least amount of body surface affected by psoriasis had the highest average vitamin D levels while those with the greatest affected area had the lowest average levels of vitamin D.
“Only one previous study, published in 2013, has used NHANES data to analyze the relationship between vitamin D and psoriasis,” said Lim. “We were able to add more recent data, which more than tripled the number of psoriasis cases analyzed, making our results more up-to-date and statistically powerful than previously available data.”
Although dietary vitamin D toxicity is rare, the researchers advise people with psoriasis to consult their physicians and dermatologists before taking supplements.
Lim presented during the Micronutrients, Supplements and Chronic Disease Mechanisms Poster Theater Flash Session.
Muscadine Wine & Skin Aging
At the same meetings, different researchers detailed a study in which women who drank two glasses of dealcoholized muscadine wine daily showed significant improvements in the elasticity and water retention of their skin compared with those who consumed a placebo. The study marked the first time scientists have studied the impacts of nonalcoholic wine consumption on skin health in a randomized clinical trial. Researchers attribute the beneficial effects to chemical compounds called polyphenols that naturally occur in many plants.“Muscadine grapes have been found to have a unique polyphenolic profile in comparison to other red wine varieties,” said Lindsey Christman, PhD, who conducted the research with Liwei Gu, PhD, professor of food chemistry and functional food at the University of Florida. “Our study suggests that muscadine wine polyphenols have potential to improve skin conditions, specifically elasticity and transepidermal water loss, in middle aged and older women.”
Muscadine grapes are native to the Southeastern United States and are commonly used to make wine. Previous clinical trials have suggested that polyphenols found in muscadine wine including anthocyanins, quercetin, and ellagic acid can help to decrease inflammation and oxidative stress.
For the study, researchers recruited 17 women age 40-67 and randomly assigned them to drink either dealcoholized wine or a placebo beverage that looked and tasted similar but did not contain polyphenols. Participants consumed 300 milliliters or about 10 ounces (the equivalent of two glasses of wine) of their assigned beverage daily for six weeks, then took a three-week break before switching to the opposite beverage for six weeks.
Researchers measured participants’ skin conditions and markers of inflammation and oxidative stress at the start of the study and at the end of each six-week period. They found that drinking muscadine wine significantly improved skin elasticity (a loss of elasticity is what causes skin to sag more as we age). In addition, the wine was associated with a decrease in water loss at the skin surface, a measurement that indicates the skin is providing a more effective barrier against damage.
The researchers did not see any significant difference in the amount of wrinkles on the skin. Participants showed improvements in skin smoothness and less evidence of inflammation and oxidative stress compared to baseline, but there was not a significant difference in these factors between dealcoholized muscadine wine and the placebo.
“This cross-over study demonstrated that six weeks of dealcoholized muscadine wine consumption resulted in improvement of certain skin parameters associated with aging, such as elasticity on the forearm and barrier function of the skin on the face, when compared to baseline and placebo,” said Christman. “This is likely due to decreases in inflammation and oxidative stress.”
Since the trial involved only 17 participants, repeating the study with a larger and more diverse group of people would help to confirm and strengthen the findings. In addition, most commercially-available muscadine wine contains alcohol, and researchers cautioned that drinking wine with alcohol may produce a different result.
“We used dealcoholized muscadine wine because we were interested in the effect of the bioactive compounds in wine, specifically the polyphenols, on skin health,” said Christman. “Alcohol would add another variable to the study that may cause the effects to be different. In addition, the dealcholization process may alter the chemical composition.”
Christman presented during the Aging and Chronic Disease Poster Session at the ASN event in Boston.
American Society for Nutrition
Abstracts presented at the meeting were evaluated and selected by a committee of experts but have not generally undergone the same peer review process required for publication in a scientific journal, according to organizers. As such, the findings presented should be considered preliminary until a peer-reviewed publication is available.Nutrition is the flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, an educational event for nutritional professionals that brings together lab scientists, practicing clinicians, population health researchers, and community intervention investigators to identify solutions to nutrition challenges. The audience also includes rising leaders in the field, such as undergraduate, graduate and medical students. ASN was founded in 1928. The society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition.