Women who love to drink beer are at higher risk of developing psoriasis, a chronic skin disease, according to a study.

Experts said women who drank five or more beers a week, were at two-fold risk of developing skin disease. They believe the starchy grains in beer may account for the problem.

Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease characterised by itchy, red scaly patches that most commonly appear on knees, elbows and scalp but can show up anywhere, including the face.

'Non-light beer was the only alcoholic beverage that increased the risk of psoriasis, suggesting that certain non-alcoholic components of beer, which are not found in wine or liquor, may play an important role in new-onset psoriasis,' dailymail.co.uk quoted the researchers as saying.

'One of these components may be the starch source used in making beer. Beer is one of the few non-distilled alcoholic beverages that use a starch source for fermentation, which is commonly barley,' the researchers added.

The scientists studied the data from almost 83,000 women aged 27 to 44, who participated in the 1991 Nurses' Health Study II, a major US investigation looking at health risk factors in women. A total of 1,150 of the women developed psoriasis in 2005, of which 1,069 were used in the analysis.

Psoriasis risk was 72 percent greater among women who consumed an average of 2.3 or more alcoholic drinks per week.

When drinks were assessed by type, the researchers found a strong association between beer and the skin disease.

The study appeared in journal Archives of Dermatology.