WEDNESDAY, June 5, 2024 -- Dietary sodium intake seems to be associated with the risk for atopic dermatitis (AD), according to a study published online June 5 in JAMA Dermatology.

Brenda M. Chiang, from the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of adults from the U.K. Biobank to determine the extent to which higher levels of dietary sodium intake are associated with AD. The analytic sample included 215,832 participants; 5.0 percent had a diagnosis of AD.

The researchers found that a 1-g increase in estimated 24-hour urine sodium excretion was associated with increased odds of AD, increased odds of active AD, and increasing severity of AD (adjusted odds ratios, 1.11, 1.16, and 1.11, respectively). A 1-g higher daily dietary sodium intake estimated using dietary recall questionnaires was associated with an increased risk for current AD (adjusted odds ratio, 1.22) in a validation cohort of 13,014 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

"Our study opens the potential for future studies on restriction of dietary sodium intake as an intervention for AD that would be cost-effective, low risk, and widely available," the authors write.

One author disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical and dermatology industries.