Women with high blood pressure more likely to suffer migraines: study

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Women with high blood pressure are more likely to suffer migraine, according to a new study.

Researchers found that having the condition, specifically high diastolic blood pressure, was linked to higher odds of having debilitating headaches that can cause severe throbbing pain.

Diastolic pressure is when the heart is resting between beats. However, the study did not find an increased risk between other cardiovascular risk factors and migraine.

Study author Dr. Antoinette Maassen van den Brink said: “Previous research shows that migraine is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart disease and heart attack, but less is known about how risk factors for cardiovascular events relate to having migraine.

“Our study looked at well-known risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes, smoking, obesity and high cholesterol and found an increased odds of having migraine only in female participants with higher diastolic blood pressure.”

The study, published by the journal Neurology , involved 7,266 men and women with an average age of 67 years, of whom 15% had previous or current migraine.

All the participants underwent physical exams and provided blood samples.

They were also asked questions about migraine, including if they had ever experienced a headache with severe pain that affected their daily activities.

After adjusting for multiple cardiovascular risk factors such as physical activity, as well as education level, the research team found female participants with higher diastolic blood pressure were 16% more likely to have migraine per standard deviation increase in diastolic blood pressure.

An increase per standard deviation is a measure to compare the diastolic blood pressure with other cardiovascular risk factors.

But no associations were found for systolic blood pressure.

Dr. van den Brink said the findings to the theory that migraine is associated with a slightly reduced function of the small blood vessels rather than a reduced function of the large blood vessels.

There were no associations for female participants with high cholesterol or obesity, and smoking was associated with 28% lower odds of having migraine and diabetes with 26% lower odds of having migraine.

Dr. van den Brink, of Erasmus MC University Medical Centre, Holland, said: “These results should be interpreted with caution, as they do not prove that smoking causes a lower risk of migraine.

"Instead, smoking might trigger migraine attacks and therefore, people who choose to smoke are less likely to be people who have migraine.”

The research team found no associations between cardiovascular risk factors and migraine in the male participants.

Dr. van den Brink added: "Our study suggests that overall, migraine is not directly related to traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

“Because we looked at people who were middle-age and older, future studies are needed in younger groups of people who are followed for longer periods of time.”

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