Obesity, Diabetes Mellitus and the Skin
Obesity is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus.[2,66,67] Therefore, there is a secondary association of obesity with all the cutaneous associations of diabetes mellitus (see Table 1).[2,66,67] Specific dermatological associations with diabetes and obesity would include fibroepithelial polyps, acanthosis nigricans and acne keloidalis nuchae,[7,22,68,69] although acanthosis nigricans can also be familial or associated with malignancies[70,71] and some consider fibroepithelial polyps to be associated with diabetes alone, in the absence of obesity.[72] On the other hand, fibroepithelial polyps express increased amounts of leptin and mast cells, which might favour a link with obesity, via an altered adipocytokine environment.[13,14,27,28,57]
The British Journal of Dermatology. 2011;165(4):743-750. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing
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