Washington, Feb 11 (Inditop.com) Migraine sufferers are twice as likely to have heart attacks compared to their healthy counterparts, says a new study.
Migraine sufferers also face increased risk for stroke and are more likely to have key risk factors for cardiovascular disease including diabetes, high blood pressure (BP) and high cholesterol, the study said.
“Migraine has been viewed as a painful condition that affects quality of life but not as a threat to people’s overall health,” said lead investigator Richard B. Lipton, study author and professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
More than 29 million Americans suffer from migraine, according to the National Headache Foundation.
There are two major forms, migraine without aura and migraine with aura. Both forms involve pulsing or throbbing pain, pain on one side of the head, nausea or vomiting, or sensitivity to light or sound.
Migraine with aura has additional neurological symptoms including flashing lights, zig-zag lines or a graying out of vision. Migraine is most common between the ages of 25 and 55. Women are affected three times more frequently than men.
Previous population studies found that migraine with aura is associated with heart disease and stroke, particularly in health care professionals over the age of 45.
The Einstein study showed that both migraine with aura and migraine without aura are risk factors for heart disease and stroke in a broadly representative sample of the US population, including people aged between 18 and 80 years.
Researchers analysed data on 6,102 people with migraine and 5,243 people without migraine. Participants completed questionnaires that asked about general health, headache frequency, severity and symptoms.
Results showed that migraine sufferers were about twice as likely to have had a heart attack compared to people without migraine (4.1 percent of people with migraine compared with 1.9 percent of those without migraine).
The heart-attack risk was higher for those whose migraine is accompanied by aura: a three-fold greater risk compared with people who didn’t suffer migraine, says an Albert Einstein release.
The main message of the study, said Lipton, is that migraine patients and their doctors should be particularly attentive to identifying and managing cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes.
These findings were published in the Feb 10 online issue of Neurology.
