Women who suffer from migraine headaches may have a slightly increased risk of heart disease or stroke, according to a study published online May 31 in The BMJ.
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A joint team of USA and German researchers found that recurrent migraines left unchecked may up the mortality risk in women by 50 percent.
But the new study looked at 8-thousand electronic records of pediatric concussions and found 82 percent of them were diagnosed by a primary care physician. At the start of the study, the women were aged 25 to 42, free from heart disease, and were followed from 1989 to 2011.
Women who suffer from migraines may have an increased risk of developing heart disease and experiencing a heart attack or stroke later in life, experts have warned.
Specifically, women with migraines had about a 39 percent higher risk of myocardial infarction, a 62 percent higher risk of stroke, and a 73 percent higher risk of angina/coronary revascularization procedures.
As well as being associated with an increased risk of major cardiovascular disease as a composite primary end point, migraine was also associated with an increased risk for each of the individual components.
After adjusting for confounding factors, the chances of getting major cardiovascular disease were 50% higher for women with migraine than women without (adjusted hazard ratio 1.5, 95% confidence interval 1.33 to 1.69).
“A migraine should be considered a marker for increased risk of cardiovascular disease, at least in women”, she said, although noted that there is no reason as why the same could not apply to men.
“Results of this large, prospective cohort study among women support the hypothesis that migraine is a marker for increased risk of any cardiovascular events”.
The researchers from Harvard Medical School said more research was needed to determine whether treatment to prevent migraines could cut these risks – but said anyone suffering migraines should have their heart risk assessed. Additionally, information for vascular biomarkers and migraine-specific information, such as the presence of aura, were not available to the team.
Also, Kurth highlighted that the study did not directly prove cause-and-effect.
“Given the high prevalence of migraine in the general population, an urgent need exists to understand the biological processes involved and to provide preventive solutions for patients”. Which can be challenging due to a migraine tends to occur earlier in life, and the cardiovascular disease tends to appear later.
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Migraines-searing headaches that feel like a hammer to the inside of the skull-can strike anyone, but they predominantly affect women, who are up to four times more likely than men to get them.
