Alcohol consumption and risk of psoriasis: results from observational and genetic analyses in more than 100,000 individuals from the Danish general population

Background Psoriasis is associated with high alcohol consumption, but the causality of this relationship is unclear. Objective We aimed to use a mendelian randomization approach to investigate the causal effects of alcohol on incident psoriasis. Methods We included 102,655 adults from the prospective Copenhagen studies. All participants filled out a questionnaire on alcohol consumption, were physically examined, and had blood drawn for biochemical and genetic analyses. We created a genetic instrument based on the number of fast-metabolizing alleles in ADH1B and ADH1C, known to be associated with alcohol consumption, to test whether alcohol consumption was causally associated with psoriasis. Results Observationally, we found an increased risk of incident psoriasis among individuals with high alcohol consumption compared to those with low alcohol consumption with a hazard ratio of 1.30 (95% confidence interval 1.05-1.60) in the fully adjusted model. Using genetic data to predict alcohol consumption to avoid confounding and reverse causation, we found no association between number of fast-metabolizing alleles and risk of psoriasis. Limitations Alcohol consumption was self-reported, and psoriasis was defined using ICD-10/ICD-8 codes. Conclusion Alcohol consumption is observationally but not causally associated with incident psoriasis.