Women's migraines might develop from high blood pressure, study finds

High blood pressure might increase a woman's odds of suffering migraines , a new study finds.

Specifically, high diastolic blood pressure is linked to a slightly higher risk of women ever having a migraine, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Neurology .

Diastolic pressure is the second number in a blood pressure reading, and occurs when the heart is resting between beats.

The study found that no other heart health risk factors appear to increase risk of a migraine, even though migraines have been linked to higher odds of having a stroke, heart attack or heart disease.

"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," said researcher Antoinette Maassen van den Brink , a professor with Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 7,200 people with an average age of 67. About 15% had suffered a migraine at some point in their lives.

Women with higher diastolic pressure had 16% higher odds of having a migraine, and those odds further increased as their diastolic pressure ticked up, results show.

The finding adds weight to the theory that migraines are linked to problems with small blood vessels rather than large blood vessels, Maassen van den Brink said.

However, the results showed no link between heart health risk factors and migraine in men. This might be because there were too few men included in the study who suffered from migraine, researchers said.

"Our study suggests that overall, migraine is not directly related to traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease," Maassen van den Brink said in a journal news release.

"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."

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on migraine and heart disease .

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