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Migraine headaches linked to bad academic performance

July 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 4 (ANI): Teens who suffer from migraine headaches are more likely to get lower grades, and less likely to graduate from high school, or attend college than those who don’t have migraine, according to a study.

Conducted by Joseph Sabia, a professor of Public Policy at American University’s School of Public Affairs, and Daniel Rees, a professor of Economics at the University of Colorado Denver, the study is the first to have examined effect of migraine in teens on future academic achievement.

“We know that migraine headaches can profoundly impact quality of life. Our study offers evidence that they are an important obstacle to long-term academic success. Our results show that migraine sufferers have trouble attending school and have trouble concentrating on the days they do make it to school,” said Sabia.

Scientists examined data on sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

They examined the migraine experiences and high school grades of 214 siblings from 105 families.

Information on high school completion and college attendance data was obtained from 280 siblings belonging to 137 families.

Parental reports identified siblings raised in the same household with different migraine experiences.

“By focusing on differences between siblings, we can rule out the possibility that family- level factors such as socioeconomic status are driving the relationship between migraine headache and academic performance,” said Rees.

It was found that suffering from migraine headaches was linked with a 5 percent reduction in high school GPA, a 5 percent reduction in the likelihood of graduating from high school, and a 15 percent reduction in the likelihood of attending college.

Thirty to 40 percent of these reductions could be attributed to excused absences from school, difficulty paying attention in class, and difficulty completing homework.

Non-migraine headaches were not associated with reductions in academic performance.

The results were presented at the 84th Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International in Vancouver, British Columbia. (ANI)

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Migraines more common in women than men

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 26 (ANI): Next time your wife complaints about migraine pain, don’t think of it as an excuse for not cooking food, for the most common type of headache that sends patients running to their doctor’s office is more common in women than men, says a new study.

Migraines occur when constricting blood vessels in the brain cause intense, recurring vascular headaches.

Approximately three out of four migraine sufferers are women and researchers have often cited hormones as a possible explanation.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, over half of migraines in women transpire right before, during or after a woman has her menstrual period.

And while some women experience migraines throughout their cycle, menstrual-related migraines could be one trigger of the condition.

Right before a woman’s cycle begins, the levels of oestrogen and progesterone drop sharply.

Such a drop in hormone levels may initiate migraine headaches because oestrogen is known to control brain chemicals that affect pain sensation in women.

“Like in all neurological diseases, a combination of genetics and environment play a role. One environmental factor is oestrogen but a genetic predisposition has been firmly established,” said Richard Pearl, MD, a clinical neurologist in Suffolk County, N.Y.

While hormones cannot give a clear picture behind the phenomenon, a recent study has revealed that women with a history of migraines may be less likely to develop breast cancer than other women.

As breast cancer is linked to higher lifetime exposure to oestrogen, the fact that migraines are more common when there is a drop in oestrogen could support the hormone theory. (ANI)

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Smoking more than 5 ciggies a day triggers migraine attacks

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 25 (ANI): Smoking more than 5 cigarettes a day can provoke migraine attacks, claims a new study published in the Journal of Headache and Pain.

The research prior to the work published in The Journal of Headache and Pain indicated that smoking could improve migraines by reducing anxiety, one of the factors that triggers an attack.

“This study is groundbreaking in Spain as there are few studies on this topic, and all are very biased. This is due to the complexity and need for prior training of the participants”, Julio Pascual, one of the authors of this research and doctor at the Neurology Unit of Marqués de Valdecilla, University Hospital (Santander), explains to SINC.

One advantage of this study is that the sample used, 361 medicine students from the University of Salamanca, were fully aware what a migraine was.

The experts, who enquired about the presence or absence of migraine (and its characteristics) and whether or not they smoked, guaranteed the reliability of the results obtained, as most surveys for this type of study are done over the phone, randomly and in people without knowledge of the illness.

The results show that 16 percent of students fulfilled migraine criteria, while 20 percent smoked.

The percentage of smokers was higher (29 percent) in those who were also migraine sufferers and migraine frequency in those students who were migraine sufferers and smokers was clearly higher than in those who were non-smokers and migraine sufferers.

According to Pascual, “smoking is a precipitating factor of this type of headache, as the prevalence of active smokers is one third higher in migraine sufferers and there is a direct relationship between the number of cigarettes consumed and the frequency of migraine attacks”.

The results of the interviews reveal that the migraine sets in after five daily cigarettes. Furthermore, although the percentage of those who smoked was higher in people with migraines, they smoked less than those who did not suffer migraines. (ANI)

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Magnetic therapy to treat chronic migraine developed

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 30 (ANI): A new therapy that uses magnetic pulses has shown promise in treating chronic migraine sufferers, say researchers.

The new therapy is called transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS.

During the study conducted in rats, the University of California, San Francisco researchers focused on understanding the mechanism of action of TMS therapy — how the treatment interacted with the brain to produce the pain-free outcomes of patients.

They identified potential opportunities to enhance treatment strategies in patients.

The study team noted that factors such as time and peak intensity of stimulation may be important components in the brain’s response to TMS.

“The data demonstrate a biological rationale for the use of TMS to treat migraine aura,” said Peter Goadsby, lead investigator of the study, professor and director of the UCSF Headache Centre.

“We found that cortical spreading depression, known as CSD and the animal correlate of migraine aura, was susceptible to TMS therapy, with the wave of neuronal excitation blocked on over 50 percent of occasions,” he added.

The study showed that migraine aura, a condition in which a variety of mostly visual sensations come before or accompany the pain of a migraine attack, responds to magnetic stimulation.

The magnetic pulses block the wave of neuronal excitation, which is a biological system through which neurons become stimulated to fire.

TMS creates a focused magnetic pulse that passes noninvasively through the skull, inducing an electric current to disrupt the abnormal brain waves believed to be associated with migraine, including CSD. CSD in humans precedes migraine with aura.

The researchers hope that the findings give neurologists a potential new treatment option for migraine sufferers unable to tolerate medication.

The findings were presented during the annual American Academy of Neurology scientific meeting in Seattle. (ANI)

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Novel target for migraine prevention identified

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 29 (ANI): Researchers have found a potential target for developing new treatment for acute migraine attacks.

The new research by Addex Pharmaceuticals showed that targeting glutamate receptor ‘mGluR5′, the most common neurotransmitter in the brain, could prevent migraines.

The research team suggest that mGluR5 could play a role in the “migraine circuit,” a positive feedback loop that generates the symptoms of a migraine attack.

During the study, the researchers conducted trials with the help og potential drug candidate ADX10059, a negative mGluR5 allosteric modulator.

It showed efficacy in treating acute migraine attacks and provides evidence that inhibition of this glutamate receptor subtype could play a role in stopping migraine attacks before they start.

In the study involving 129 migraine patients, the researchers found that more patients taking ADX10059 than those taking placebo were pain-free two hours after dosing.

ADX10059 administration yielded better pain improvement at all time points up to two hours after treatment of a migraine attack.

“Medication is available to prevent migraine but these treatments are often secondary uses of the drug and come with potentially limiting side-effects,” said Dr. Peter Goadsby of the UCSF Headache Center.

“New therapies specifically developed for migraine prevention are urgently needed especially for the substantial proportion of migraine sufferers who have frequent attacks and have significant disability in their daily lives.

“Targeting mGluR5 signaling with ADX10059 is an interesting approach that is showing significant promise in early clinical evaluation.

“The clinical trial data for ADX10059 proved the concept that by terminating acute attacks in some patients, mGluR5 inhibition plays a role in migraine pathophysiology.

The study was presented at annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. (ANI)

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Special exercise programme could benefit migraine sufferers

April 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 17 (ANI): Researchers from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden have developed a special exercise programme for people suffering from migraine.

Migraine sufferers are often advised to take exercise, however, they avoid it amid fears that the physical activity may bring on a serious migraine attack.

“We know that everyone benefits from a little exercise, but if you’re convinced that a session at the gym will end up with you being confined to bed with a thumping headache and nausea then it’s hardly surprising that people give it a miss,” said Jane Carlsson, Professor in Physiotherapy at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

During the study, the researchers recruited twenty migraine sufferers who were asked to follow a special exercise programme three times a week for three months.

The programme involved using an exercise bike under the guidance of a physiotherapist.

“We could see that those who participated in the study were much fitter after the training period, since their ability to absorb oxygen increased considerably,” said physiotherapist Emma Varkey, one of the researchers behind the study.

Moreover, the researchers revealed that only one of the patients suffered a migraine attack that was directly linked to the training session.

“Now that we’ve been able to show that the risk of increased frequency of attacks in connection with this type of exercise is extremely small, we can study whether exercise can be used to prevent or alleviate migraine attacks,” said Mattias Linde, neurologist at Cephalea Headache Centre and researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

“We have already initiated a new study in which we plan to compare the results against a control group,” Linde added.

The study is published in journal Headache. (ANI)

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Aerobics can reduce migraine suffering

March 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 27 (ANI): While physical exercise has been shown to trigger migraine headaches among sufferers, a new study suggests that aerobics can significantly reduce the suffering.

During the study, researchers examined a sample of migraine sufferers before, during and after the aerobic exercise intervention program.

The program was based on indoor cycling (for continuous aerobic exercise) and was designed to improve maximal oxygen uptake without worsening the patients’ migraines.

The findings revealed that after the treatment period, patients’ maximum oxygen uptake increased significantly.

There was no worsening of migraine status at any time during the study period.

During the last month of treatment, there was a significant decrease in the number of migraine attacks, the number of days with migraine per month, headache intensity and amount of headache medication used.

Individuals with headache and migraine typically are less physically active. They often avoid exercise, resulting in less aerobic endurance and flexibility.

Therefore, well-designed studies of exercise in patients with migraine are imperative.

“While the optimal amount of exercise for patients with migraine remains unknown, our evaluated program can now be tested further and compared to pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments to see if exercise can prevent migraine,” said Dr. Emma Varkey, co-author of the study. (ANI)

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