Migraine headaches may in some ways be 'good' for your health.
by Daniella Ashkenazy
Members of the migraine "community" will tell you they have various ways of dealing with an attack: some seek the source in a particular food that they believe "triggers" their attacks; some take hot showers; others use medication. There are even some sufferers who put banana peels on their foreheads in the hope for relief. Most crawl into bed, darken the room and wait until it passes, be it three hours or three days. But no one yet has found a total cure. Nevertheless, there is good news for migraine victims - you won't die of a heart attack.
This conclusion was reached in a study conducted at the Rabin (Beilinson) Medical Center in Petah Tikva. While heart disease is still the primary cause of death in the west, those who suffer from migraine headaches - some 16 percent of people - constitute a very low-risk subgroup, with little chance of ever suffering a heart attack.
Previous studies have shown that besides a splitting headache and nausea, there are other physical changes that take place during a migraine attack, including constriction of blood vessels in various parts of the body. The study originally sought to determine whether the constriction of blood vessels that take place in the chest constitutes a risk factor - perhaps triggering heart attacks.
Dr. Arieh Kuritzky, director of the Headache Unit of the Neurological Department and President of the Israel Headache Association explains: "There is research that has already tied spasms in the coronary arteries with migraine headaches. Such spasms are an integral part of the malady itself. The first stage of our work focused on individuals who had suffered a heart attack. Surprisingly, the results showed a very low incidence of migraine headaches among those who had undergone a heart attack - 6% in comparison with 16% among the control group who had not had a heart attack."
Intrigued by the findings, Dr. Kuritzky, together with Dr. Ram Paz from the Heart Institute and doctoral candidate Orit Lerner, then examined the prevalence of heart attacks solely among migraine sufferers. A sample of 150 migraine headache sufferers above the age of 50 was compared with 150 persons the same age, who do not suffer from migraine headaches.
After neutralizing other possible variables - risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes and use of certain medications - the team found that the migraine sufferers were eleven times less likely to have heart attacks.
Dr. Kuritzky believes that some kind of "familiarization process" must be at work: when the blood vessels in the chest constrict during a migraine attack, victims feel chest pains and their hearts suffer from a mild case of irregular blood supply. Over time, he speculates, migraines "condition" the heart to cope with this kind of stress. Thus, when there is sudden severe irregular blood supply to the heart - such as that occurring just before a heart attack - the heart is better able to cope with the situation.
Beyond the "bonus" of low risk of heart attacks, Dr. Kuritzky adds, "we can perhaps understand why migraine headaches exist. Migraines may be some sort of protective mechanism that warns us when our cholesterol level is very high, or when we are eating too much of a certain food or not sleeping well. Stress also triggers a headache as a protective shield - making it a 'blessing' to some extent."