Alcohol Intake and Risk of Incident Psoriatic Arthritis in Women

Objective. Alcohol intake has been associated with an increased risk of psoriasis. However, the association between alcohol intake and risk of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) has been unclear. We evaluated the association between alcohol intake and risk of incident PsA in a large cohort of US women. Methods. Our present study included a total of 82,672 US women who provided repeated data on alcohol intake over the followup period (1991-2005). Self-reported PsA was validated using the Psoriatic Arthritis Screening and Evaluation (PASE) questionnaire. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the age-adjusted and multivariate-adjusted HR and 95% CI for the PsA in association with alcohol intake. Results. We documented 141 incident PsA cases during 14 years (1,137,763 person-yrs) of followup. Compared to non-drinkers, the multivariate HR for PsA were 0.70 (95% CI 0.48-1.01) for 0.1-14.9 g/day, 1.43 (95% CI 0.67-3.08) for 15.0-29.9 g/day, and 4.45 (95% CI 2.07-9.59) for >= 30.0 g/day of cumulative average alcohol intake. Risk estimates were generally consistent when using updated alcohol intake and baseline alcohol intake in 1991 as the exposures, and when the analysis was restricted to those who developed psoriasis during the followup. Conclusion. Excessive alcohol intake was associated with an increased risk of incident PsA in a cohort of US women.