Articles about migraine

Migraine, one of the leading causes of disability worldwide1 is a model condition if we want to study variation between individuals and the therapeutic implications of these differences. The hallmark of migraine is episodic, debilitating attacks that are easily diagnosed and monitored. In addition, many people with migraine have several attacks per month, so profiling […]

We can easily recognize the face of someone we know from thousands if not millions of other humans. However, it turns out that individual differences in physical appearance are dwarfed by the biochemical differences within us. In the middle of the last century, Roger J. Williams, PhD, a distinguished American scientist specializing in nutrition at […]

The relationship between alcohol and headache is complex. As discussed above, alcohol can cause headaches as part of post intoxication syndrome of a hangover. Typically occurring within several hours of the cessation of drinking, hangovers generally consist of nausea, abdominal discomfort, headache and psychological symptoms. Frequent hangovers generally lead to worsening social, educational and employment functioning. The treatment of hangovers is fraught with mythology. It seems that everyone has a recommendation: from consumption of raw eggs, fat heavy foods, to coffee and more alcohol. There is little evidence supporting any of these interventions beyond the general recommendations of avoiding alcohol. Alcohol can also enact its effect on headache in other ways. Some migraine sufferers have found alcohol to be a direct trigger for their events, without waiting for the withdrawal period. Others have speculated that “darker alcohols” including red wine and certain distilled spirits may have a greater chance of inducing a migraine. But, the fact is that all alcohol has the risk of acting as a trigger. To date, no evidence has demonstrated that the tannins, sulfates or sulfites in commercial alcohol has any greater risk of being a migraine inducer.

Genetics may explain why alcohol appears to be a migraine trigger in some individuals and a protector in others. Even though humans can now metabolize alcohol, the trait is certainly not universal in the animal kingdom, even small amounts are toxic to man’s best friends, cats and dogs. When and how did humans acquire the ability to metabolize alcohol? Around 10 million years ago an amazing thing happened in our evolution. The seminal act occurred when our primate ancestral species moved from being primarily arboreal (tree-dwelling) to terrestrial.