Ramadan Time-Restricted Fasting Cut Psoriasis Severity Scores in 108 Patients: What the Research Shows

Ramadan Time-Restricted Fasting Cut Psoriasis Severity Scores in 108 Patients: What the Research Shows

Medical disclaimer: This article summarises published research for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for guidance from a qualified health professional. Always consult your doctor before starting any fasting protocol, especially if you have an existing health condition or take medication.

Study at a Glance

What This Study Looked At

Ramadan fasting — abstaining from food and drink from dawn until sunset for about a month — is one of the largest natural experiments in daily time-restricted eating, practiced by hundreds of millions of people every year. This study asked a simple question: does that month of daily fasting change how severe psoriasis symptoms are, measured using the standard clinical tool doctors use to grade the disease, the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI)? For background on how fasting interacts with skin health more broadly, see Can Intermittent Fasting Help With Psoriasis and Skin Conditions? and Does Intermittent Fasting Reduce Inflammation?

Who Was Studied

Participant profile: Adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, mean age 42.8 years (± 13.6), 62 men and 46 women, recruited across multiple dermatology centers.

How the fasting worked in this study: Participants followed the standard Ramadan protocol — complete abstention from food and drink during daylight hours for roughly 29–30 consecutive days, eating only before dawn and after sunset. This produces a daily eating window broadly similar to an extended time-restricted eating pattern. Reported adherence to the fast was very high, at 97.3%. Patients continued whatever systemic psoriasis treatment they were already on (including biologics and other systemic drugs) throughout the study.

What the Researchers Found

Psoriasis severity (PASI score)

• PASI scores were significantly lower after the month of fasting than before it in this patient group.
• The reduction, while modest in absolute PASI points, was highly statistically significant given the sample size.

Medication and treatment differences

• Patients being treated with cyclosporine, IL-17 inhibitors, mTOR inhibitors, or TNF-alpha blockers during the fast tended to show a lower (better) PASI score after Ramadan than those on other treatments.
• Patients relying on narrow-band UVB (NB-UVB) phototherapy tended to show a higher (worse) PASI score after Ramadan, plausibly reflecting disrupted phototherapy scheduling or attendance during the fasting month rather than fasting itself.

What Did Not Change

• The study did not report a formal comparison of lean/fat mass or muscle changes — this was a dermatology-focused outcome study, not a body composition study.
• No control (non-fasting) group was tracked in parallel, so natural seasonal or treatment-related PASI changes unrelated to fasting cannot be fully ruled out.

What the Researchers Concluded

The authors concluded that Ramadan fasting was associated with a significant reduction in psoriasis severity as measured by PASI, and suggested that the type of concurrent systemic treatment a patient was on may influence how much they benefited from the fasting period.

What This Means If You Fast

• A month of daily time-restricted eating was linked to milder psoriasis symptoms in this real-world patient group, consistent with fasting's broader anti-inflammatory effects.
• Existing treatment mattered. Patients on certain systemic therapies saw better results, which suggests fasting may complement rather than replace standard psoriasis treatment — see Does Fasting Improve Skin? A Guide for Women for more on the fasting-skin connection.
• Phototherapy patients may need extra planning. If NB-UVB is part of your treatment, disrupted fasting-month scheduling could affect outcomes — this is worth discussing with a dermatologist before a long fast.
• This is a real-world (non-randomized) study, so it shows an association, not proof that fasting alone caused the improvement.
• Talk to your dermatologist before fasting if you're on systemic psoriasis medication, since some treatments require food intake for proper absorption or tolerability.

Study Limitations

• No non-fasting control group — this was a single-arm, before-and-after comparison, not a randomized controlled trial.
• Modest average PASI reduction in absolute terms (under 1 point), even though statistically significant.
• Religious/cultural fasting (Ramadan) differs from typical Western time-restricted eating protocols in duration, hydration rules, and surrounding lifestyle changes (sleep, meal timing, social eating patterns), which may limit how directly the findings generalize.
• Multiple concurrent psoriasis treatments were in use across participants, making it harder to isolate fasting's effect from medication effects.
• Live PubMed verification of the exact PMID was not possible at the time this article was generated (see note above); the study details were compiled from the peer-reviewed PMC full text and cross-referenced web sources.

Source

Damiani, G., Watad, A., Bridgewood, C., Pigatto, P. D. M., Pacifico, A., Malagoli, P., Bragazzi, N. L., & Adawi, M. (2019). The Impact of Ramadan Fasting on the Reduction of PASI Score, in Moderate-To-Severe Psoriatic Patients: A Real-Life Multicenter Study. Nutrients, 11(2), 277. View full text on PubMed Central →

Frequently Asked Questions

Does fasting help with psoriasis?

This study found that a month of Ramadan time-restricted fasting was linked to a statistically significant reduction in PASI (psoriasis severity) scores among 108 patients, though the average improvement was modest.

How long did participants fast each day in this study?

Participants followed the standard Ramadan schedule — no food or drink from dawn until sunset — for approximately 29–30 consecutive days.

Is Ramadan fasting the same as time-restricted eating?

Not exactly, but it's closely related. Both involve confining food intake to a defined daily window; Ramadan fasting adds religious, cultural, and hydration-timing elements that differ from a typical Western 16:8 or 18:6 protocol.

Did everyone in the study see improvement?

The study reported average results across the group; individual outcomes varied, and patients on certain systemic medications (like IL-17 inhibitors) tended to see better PASI improvement than those relying on phototherapy.

Should I stop my psoriasis medication if I start fasting?

No. This study specifically followed patients who continued their existing treatment while fasting. Never change or stop a prescribed psoriasis treatment without talking to your dermatologist first.

Related Research and Articles

• Ramadan Intermittent Fasting Reduces Psoriasis Severity and Inflammatory Markers: What the Research Shows
• Can Intermittent Fasting Help With Psoriasis and Skin Conditions?
• Does Intermittent Fasting Reduce Inflammation?
• Intermittent Fasting and Inflammation: Research Roundup
• Does Fasting Improve Skin? A Guide for Women
• Intermittent Fasting for Arthritis and Joint Inflammation

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