Background: The relationship between obesity and rosacea is poorly understood.
Objective: To conduct the first cohort study to determine the association between obesity and risk for incident rosacea.
Methods: A total of 89,886 participants were included from the Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2005). Information on history of clinician-diagnosed rosacea and year of diagnosis was collected in 2005. Information on obesity was collected biennially during follow-up.
Results: Over 14 years of follow-up, we identified 5249 incident cases of rosacea. The risk for rosacea was elevated for those with increased body mass index (BMI, Ptrend < .0001). Compared with a BMI of 21.0-22.9 kg/m2, the hazard ratio of rosacea was 1.48 (95% confidence interval 1.33-1.64) for BMI ≥ 35.0. There was a trend toward an increased risk for rosacea among participants who had gained weight after age 18 years (Ptrend < .0001), with a hazard ratio of 1.04 (95% confidence interval 1.03-1.05) per 10-lb weight gain. We also observed significantly increased risk for rosacea associated with higher waist circumference and hip circumference (Ptrend < .0001), and the associations appeared to be independent of BMI.
Limitations: This epidemiologic study did not explore underlying mechanisms of the association.
Conclusions: Measures of obesity were significantly associated with an increased risk for incident rosacea.
Keywords: body mass index; central obesity; cohort study; obesity; rosacea; weight change.
Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Dermatology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.