Spironolactone May Reduce the Risk of Incident Rosacea

In 2013, a large population-based case-control study using the UK-based General Practice Research Database examined the effect of spironolactone on the risk of developing rosacea. The study involved 53,927 patients with a new diagnosis of rosacea and an equal number of controls without the condition. The findings indicated that spironolactone use was linked to a reduced risk of rosacea, with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.83 for spironolactone users, which decreased to 0.47 among current users at the index date. This suggested that spironolactone's anti-androgenic effects might contribute to the lower risk, though the precise mechanism was not determined. Despite being the largest study of its kind, the authors acknowledged the possibility of residual confounding factors.