Two hundred and nineteen psoriatic in-patients and 747 non-psoriatic subjects were asked to report in a semiquantitative, self-administered questionnaire on the frequency of consumption of different foodstuffs and cooking and seasoning fats and the daily intake of alcohol (glasses/day) and coffee (cups/day). According to this a definite score was assigned to each of the 46 food items, which were divided into five groups: carbohydrates (CH), low-fat foods (LFF), high-fat foods (HFF), saturated fats (SF) and polyunsaturated fats (PUF) and the alcohol consumption in grams/day was calculated. The mean scores for each food group and the means of alcohol (grams/day) and coffee (cups/day) intake were compared in the two groups, after age-adjustment through ANOCOVA. Psoriatic patients showed higher scores for HFF and SF in males and for CH, HFF, SF and PUF in females and a higher intake of alcohol in both sexes. These dietary habits could explain the higher prevalence of metabolic abnormalities in psoriatic patients.