Migraines Increase Risk Of Cardiovascular Diseases

The risks of cardiovascular diseases including strokes, heart attacks, irregular heartbeat, and blood clots are increased by frequent migraines, and migraines should be considered when assessing these risk factors for both men and women according to researchers from Aarhus University Hospital, as published in The BMJ.

Migraines are characterised as a painful and severe throbbing headache that can be accompanied by other symptoms such as nausea and sensitivity to light, which can occur at any age, that are typically confined to one part of the head and can last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours. Some experiences migraines several times each week, while others occasionally, and some occurring years apart, which can be triggered by factors that individuals must learn to avoid such as alcohol, certain foods, and stress in some cases. It estimated that before hitting the age of 40, 90% of people will have experienced a migraine attack.

Migraines have been connected by previous studies to heart attack and strokes, with the rate of occurrence being higher in women. The research team set out with this study to try an find this link by collecting patient data including information from over 51,000 individuals. The team looked at individuals diagnosed with migraines and compared each case with at minimum 10 others who had never had a migraine, analyzing incidence of heart attack, blood clots, stroke, peripheral artery disease, irregular and fast heart rate, correcting the data to account for history of obesity and smoking.

Findings for this study showed that for every 1000 patients with heart conditions 17 were migraine free and 25 had migraines. 45 patients with migraines had a stroke for every 25 patients that were migraine free. Migraines were not found to be associated with peripheral artery disease and heart failure in this study. Stroke was found to be the most strongly associated as compared to other conditions in this study.

Pain relievers that has been taken long term by migraine patients could be one of the reasons behind increased risk of heart conditions. Increase risk of blood clot may be due to immobilization of the patients during migraine attacks.

Migraines should always be considered as potent and a persistent factor in the risk for most cardiovascular diseases, and can be an important in determining whether prevention strategies can reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease.