Glucose Levels In the Blood From Psoriasis Plaques

The fact that psoriasis is linked with the insulin resistance is well known.[22]

Personally I have noticed that the circles around my psoriasis plaques are so constricted that skin around them looks very pale compared to normal skin.

Those pale circles of the adjacent skin around the psoriasis plaques are called the Woronoff  rings. One study concluded that the injection of prostaglandin E2 about 1 cm from the Woronoff ring caused the redness of the ring. The prostaglandin E2 directly causes the vasodilation. As I have mentioned before I think that there is impaired blood flow in the psoriasis plaques also due to constricted vessels (endothelin).[189, 190]

That’s why I tried to measure the glucose level in the blood from psoriasis plaques. And I have discovered that the fasting blood glucose from the psoriasis plaque blood is about 40% – 70% higher than from normal skin blood from the same person.

Let’s say that fasting blood glucose from normal skin was 6,0 mmol/L (108 mg/dL) and from the psoriasis plaque it was 8,0 mmol/L – 10,5 mmol/L (144 mg/dL – 189 mg/dL) or even higher. I have used just the basic, but probably accurate glucose meter since I compared the glucose levels with the professional blood work test results and they matched.

Glucose levels in the blood from normal skin of psoriatic. The glucose levels were the same from blood of any normal skin spots.

Glucose levels in the blood from psoriasis plaque. Every psoriasis plaque showed different (but always significantly raised) glucose levels.

But don’t start thinking about some complicated causes of these results with the high glucose levels in the blood from the psoriasis plaques. There is probably just one reasonable explanation for this results.

The blood glucose is so high because (of constricted blood vessels and) the blood is stuck there not moving (glucose stays in the blood in the psoriasis plaque) and also there are probably some other chemical conditions that the home glucose meter for diabetics evaluates as high blood glucose).

And one of those chemical conditions may be that the blood from the plaque is probably without the oxygen – hypoxic. That is supported by the scientific papers which concluded that low oxygen in the blood cause that the glucose meters based on glucose oxidase method show significantly higher blood glucose levels. And (vice versa) when person breathe the concentrated oxygen the measurements of the blood glucose may be lower than they are actually.[23]

So despite that there are the scientific papers (and common opinion) which concluded the increased blood flow in psoriasis lesions I think that the blood doesn’t flow through them as easily as suggested.[117, 118, 119]

Even the same researcher later confirmed using the different technology that the blood flow in the psoriasis plaques is not exactly as previously stated. And that there are differences in cutaneous (skin) blood flow and subcutaneous (under the skin) blood flow in the spot where the psoriasis plaque is formed.[120]

Another supportive argument is that when I have tried to take the niacin to see if the blood from the plaques wold move after the niacin flush. The result was that even the niacin flush was not able to dilate the blood vessels around (or in) the psoriasis plaques to the point that the glucose meter would measure the same levels of glucose as from the normal skin blood. The glucose meter show after the flush (almost*) the same high readings.
* You can’t compare it exactly since the readings are quite different even from the same plaques.

In this picture you can see that even with the high dose niacin (1 000 mg) the skin around the psoriasis plaques stays pale. It takes much longer (about 30 minutes more) until the skin around the plaques becomes red, too.

It doesn’t matter that the blood glucose meter is fooled and the glucose in the blood from psoriasis plaques is lower. The point is that if the blood in the psoriasis plaque would change/flow normally then after the niacin flush the glucose meter should show the glucose levels as from the normal skin.

If you swipe the blood from the psoriasis plaque a few times and measure the glucose from the later blood the glucose levels will be as from the normal skin.

Despite there are some scientific papers that concluded higher blood flow in the psoriasis plaques this hypothesis seems doubtful to me. I think that there is actually lower blood flow in the psoriasis plaques. In the psoriasis lesions there can be also the blocked the micro-vessels deeper in the skin which affect (lower the blood flow in) the micro-vessels in the upper part of the skin.