Glucose and Insulin Responses Are Improved in Patients With Psoriasis During Therapy With Etretinate

• Since lipemia is commonly induced by retinoid therapy, we investigated the effects of etretinate administration on glucose metabolism by obtaining five-hour oral glucose tolerance tests in 23 patients before and after 20 weeks of etretinate therapy for psoriasis. Compared with pretreatment values, peak and aggregate levels for serum glucose and aggregate levels for serum insulin were significantly lower during therapy. The changes were not associated with obesity, weight loss during treatment, or pretherapy glucose tolerance or insulin secretion level. Of 11 patients with impaired or diabetic glucose tolerance prior to therapy, eight patients had improved glucose tolerance after 20 weeks of etretinate treatment. Despite inducing hypertriglyceridemia in most patients, etretinate therapy is associated with a reduction in glucose levels in response to a glucose load.