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. 2017 Jun;76(6):1061-1067.e2.
doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2017.02.040. Epub 2017 Apr 20.

Alcohol intake and risk of rosacea in US women

Affiliations

Alcohol intake and risk of rosacea in US women

Suyun Li et al. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2017 Jun.

Abstract

Background: The epidemiologic association between alcohol and rosacea is unclear and inconsistent based on the previous cross-sectional or case-control studies.

Objective: We conducted a cohort study to determine the association between alcohol intake and the risk of rosacea in women.

Methods: A total of 82,737 women were included from the Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2005). Information on alcohol intake was collected every 4 years during follow-up. Information on history of clinician-diagnosed rosacea and year of diagnosis was collected in 2005.

Results: Over 14 years of follow-up, we identified 4945 cases of rosacea. Compared with never drinkers, increased alcohol intake was associated with a significantly increased risk of rosacea (Ptrend <.0001). The multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and confidence intervals (CIs) were 1.12 (95% CI 1.05-1.20) for alcohol intake of 1-4 g/day and 1.53 (1.26-1.84) for ≥30 g/day. The associations remained consistent across categories of smoking status. Further examination of types of alcoholic beverage consumed revealed that white wine (Ptrend <.0001) and liquor intake (Ptrend = .0006) were significantly associated with a higher risk of rosacea.

Limitations: This was an epidemiologic study without examination into etiologic mechanisms.

Conclusions: Alcohol intake was significantly associated with an increased risk of rosacea in women.

Keywords: alcohol intake; cohort studies; dose-response relationship; epidemiology; rosacea; smoking.

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Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest: Dr. Drucker has received honoraria from Astellas Canada (speaker) and serves as the investigator (with no financial compensation) of Sanofi and Regeneron. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1*
Figure 1*. Dose-response hazard ratio (with 95% confidence interval) of incident rosacea by alcohol intake
*Model was adjusted for age (continuous variable), race, body mass index (kg/m2; continuous variable), postmenopausal hormone use (premenopause, never, current or past users), smoking status (Never smokers, past smokers 1–4, past smokers 5–14, past smokers 15–24, past smokers ≥25, current smokers 1–4, current smokers 5–14, current smokers 15–24, current smokers ≥25 cigarettes/day), and physical activity level (metabolic equivalent hours/week in quintiles)

Comment in

  • Rosacea and alcohol intake.
    Drago F, Ciccarese G, Herzum A, Rebora A, Parodi A. Drago F, et al. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2018 Jan;78(1):e25. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2017.08.063. Epub 2017 Nov 7. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2018. PMID: 29126626 No abstract available.
  • Reply to: "Rosacea and alcohol intake".
    Li S, Drucker AM, Cho E, Qureshi AA, Li WQ. Li S, et al. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2018 Jan;78(1):e27. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2017.09.026. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2018. PMID: 29241804 No abstract available.

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