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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Cutting calories consistently beats skipping meals for psoriasis. A new systematic review found that continuous caloric restriction and ketogenic diets significantly reduced psoriasis severity and inflammatory markers when paired with systemic therapy — while intermittent fasting offered only modest benefits. The key driver? A sustained caloric deficit, not meal timing.
A systematic review published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology analyzed 30 studies involving 2,073 patients and found that continuous caloric restriction and ketogenic diets significantly outperform intermittent fasting in managing psoriasis severity. When combined with systemic therapy, both diets led to meaningful reductions in disease activity and inflammatory biomarkers. Intermittent fasting, by contrast, showed only modest improvements — largely because it doesn't reliably create the caloric deficit needed to disrupt the obesity-psoriasis cycle.
Researchers noted that the benefit comes down to sustained metabolic change, not the timing of meals. For obese patients with severe psoriasis, the keto diet showed the largest effect, while continuous caloric restriction had the strongest evidence base overall — with 84% of patients on biologics reaching PASI 75.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: Diet is increasingly recognized as a meaningful adjunct — not a replacement — for psoriasis treatment. These findings give clinicians clearer, evidence-based guidance to offer patients who ask about dietary strategies alongside their existing therapies.
