Beyond pain: Migraines have been linked to higher cardiovascular disease risk.

by Susan Weiner, Energy Times

The French have a saying that translates as “the heart is forever making the head its fool.” For those who endure migraines, the opposite may be true: Migraine sufferers are slightly more prone to heart attacks and other cardiovascular ills than others.

According to the National Headache Foundation (NHF, www.headaches.org), 70% of the more than 29 million Americans with migraine are women; fluctuating estrogen levels may be the reason. While the precise cause of migraines is not fully understood, swelling of blood vessels in the brain can trigger throbbing pain in the eye, jaw or face, sensitivity to light and sound, and nausea and vomiting. Stress, lack of food or sleep, anxiety, weather changes and certain foods can set off an attack.

Visual disturbances known as aura—such as partial blindness or seeing flashing lights—that may accompany migraine appear to be especially problematic. Among women 45 and older who experience aura, the risk of dying from heart attack, stroke and heart disease is twice that of women without migraine (BMJ 8/24/10 online).

People with migraine were found to be twice as likely to experience heart attack, diabetes or a heart abnormality; aura pushed risk to the highest levels (Neurology 2/23/10).

However, the threat posed by migraines is not as great as that of other risk factors. “Being twice as likely to have a heart attack translates into 4.1% of people with migraine compared with 1.9% of those without, which is not that much of an increase in real numbers,” explains Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, author of The Magnesium Miracle (Ballantine; www.drcarolyndean.com).

Most migraine sufferers would tell you that reducing the risk of an attack is a worthy goal of its own. In one NHF survey, nine out of 10 reported not being able to function normally when a migraine strikes.

Life-Altering Headaches

Jodie Pulkinen knows how migraines can disrupt one’s existence. To relieve the pain she has hidden in dark rooms, driven to the emergency room for shots of Demerol and ingested enough ibuprofen to cause liver damage. She’s also struggled with a heart condition marked by chest pain, fatigue, rapid heart rate and palpitations.

In 2004, Pulkinen’s resting heart rate stayed at the very high 220 beats per minute for several hours. Soon after she underwent a mitral valve catheter ablation, a procedure that fixed her heart and unexpectedly lessened her migraines. “I never thought the migraines and the heart condition were connected,” says Pulkinen, 43, a project coordinator for the American Lung Association in Burdett, New York. “After the surgery, I had fewer headaches. If I’d known, I could have done something about my heart a long time ago.”

After the surgery Pulkinen made dietary changes. “I cut out all caffeine,” she says. “No coffee, no soda, no chocolate. I’ve reduced my sugar intake as well.” Migraine sufferers should also avoid an amino acid byproduct called tyramine, found in a number of foods and food additives including MSG, aged cheese, sauerkraut, alcohol and preserved meats. Eating cold foods can trigger migraines, as can skipping meals and becoming dehydrated. In addition, extra body fat has been found to both provoke migraines and increase heart risk.

Taking a magnesium supplement and eating magnesium-rich foods such as green vegetables and whole grains can not only fend off migraines but also help maintain a steady heart rhythm and lower blood pressure. This mineral, which prevents blood vessel spasms and regulates pain receptors, has been shown to help ease migraine (Magnesium Research 6/08). “A deficiency in magnesium will cause migraines and heart disease. Treating with magnesium can treat both,” says Dean.

Relaxing for Relief

Migraines and heart disease run in the family of Andrew Levy, PhD. In addition to taking blood pressure medication that eases migraines, Levy, an English professor at Butler University in Indianapolis and author of A Brain Wider Than The Sky: A Migraine Diary (Simon & Schuster), eats less, exercises more and practices stress reduction. “The fact that doctors have told me about these potential links between heart disease and migraine has actually not been a source of stress for me,” says Levy. “It has helped me to understand my own body better from a holistic standpoint.”

As Levy has discovered, learning how to relax is a key to reducing migraines. In one study, a combination of gentle yoga postures and breathing exercises lessened migraine frequency and pain, and improved mood (Headache 5/07).

Migraine sufferers can also benefit from the herb feverfew, which slows the production of inflammatory compounds and helps maintain proper vessel tone. A combination of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 may reduce migraine frequency and lower levels of homocysteine, an amino acid linked to coronary disease and migraines (Pharmacogenetics and Genomics 6/09). CoQ10, a supplement best known for its cardiac benefits, may help reduce migraine frequency.

If your migraines persist, see a practitioner and don’t assume the worst. As Aristotle once wrote, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

When It Isn’t a Migraine

It’s hard to find an adult who hasn’t had a headache at least occasionally. But for some people headaches are, if not a daily occurrence, frequent enough to interfere with their quality of life. Besides migraine, the National Headache Foundation classifies chronic headache into the following categories:

• Cluster: Described as even more severe than migraines, these headaches occur in groups and with little warning for weeks or months before disappearing for months or years. They tend to strike late at night or in the morning. Most sufferers are men, and both smoking and alcohol use are precipitating factors.
• Hormone: These headaches can occur as part of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or accompany the menstrual period itself; some women may experience hormonal headaches as they pass through menopause. Pregnancy usually brings relief from migraines because hormones don’t fluctuate the way they usually do during a woman’s menstrual cycle. Migraines that do occur during pregnancy tend to strike in the first trimester.
• Rebound: Headaches triggered by the over-use of medications, particularly those that contain caffeine.
• Sinus: Headaches triggered by infection, inflammation or other problems with the sinuses. Symptoms include a dull ache in the forehead or behind the cheekbones and a sense of sinus fullness.
• Tension: Most headaches that occur every once in a while fall into this category, but some people experience tension headaches on a chronic basis. More annoying than throbbing, these headaches are often centered in the forehead, temples or back of the head and the neck; some people feel as though a band is being tightened around the head. Chronic tension headache can stem from physical causes—poor posture or lighting, eyestrain, misalignments of the jaws or teeth, spinal problems involving the neck—or emotional ones such as anxiety or depression.

A sudden, severe headache can signal the occurrence of a stroke; such headaches are medical emergencies, especially if accompanied by a sudden lack of balance, difficulty speaking and/or weakness on one side of the body. A relatively small number of headaches can stem from other organic causes such a brain tumors or infections, or other serious—but fortunately rare—conditions.

If you suffer from frequent headaches, try keeping a pain diary: when the pain starts, the nature of the pain (throbbing, dull, piercing) and where it occurs, any other symptoms and what you took for relief. If you can see a pattern, trying also keeping a food diary as well—sometimes a simple change in diet can do the trick. Some people find relief through acupuncture, massage and other kinds of bodywork. If your headaches are stress-related, make your you get adequate supplies of vitamin B and both calcium andmagnesium, which are available in combination supplement form; the herb white willow bark may also help.

Say Goodbye to Headaches

By Susan Weiner, VitaNet

What’s in a name? A headache by any other name hurts just as much. But categorizing your headache can be as overwhelming as finding an obscure breakfast cereal at the supermarket. Medical folks pigeonhole headaches as tension headaches, allergy headaches, morning headaches and sinus headaches, plus the organic, migraine, cluster, trauma, TMJ, eyestrain, rebound, exertion, hormonal and muscle tension varieties. You may also suffer the self-induced hangover and toxicity headaches.

Americans are no strangers to self-medication, and as a society we battle these headaches by consuming nearly 80 billion tablets of aspirin each year, about 20 million aspirins a day, according to Burton Goldberg, co-author of An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Headaches (Future Medicine Publishing). And while we drown ourselves in over-the-counter and powerful prescription products, our tolerance, just like a drug addict’s, grows. So what begins as a twodose headache slowly evolves into three, four or five doses, until you realize that no dosage can make your headache go away.

Unless you’re fond of medieval practices such as ritualistic healings and bloodletting, drugs seem the only answer to headache misery. But even modern medicine has been unable to solve headaches. Rather than a cure, medications provide only temporary relief, and even that isn’t guaranteed. Additionally, over-reliance on medications can lead to chronic head pain. According to Goldberg, rebound headaches often result from the consumption and withdrawal of drugs.

Halt Your Headaches

Rather than strive to simply eliminate headache pain, why not identify the underlying cause and prevent the headache? Almost always, every type of headache results from a health or lifestyle-related activity. In an ideal world, the best approach would be to eliminate the tensions, stress, frustrations, anger, insufficient sleep, excessive drinking and poor diet that contribute to your headaches. For better or for worse, however, you can’t always: a. quit your job; b. ask your spouse to leave; c. sit on the beach all day; or d. all of the above. But you can make appropriate lifestyle changes and learn to express suppressed feelings.

This approach, lifestyle modification, is a treatment program based on a Loma Linda University study, originally published in Medical Hypothesis and the Journal of Women’s Health and Gender-Based Medicine and later explained in No More Headaches, No More Migraines: A Proven Approach to Preventing Headaches and Migraines by Zuzana Bic, DrPH and L. Francis Bic, PhD (Avery). The program, conducted on a group diagnosed with chronic migraines, dramatically decreased the frequency, intensity and duration of headaches in nine of 10 headache sufferers. Rather than demand radical life changes, the lifestyle modification program introduces gradual changes in three specific areas: nutrition, exercise and understanding stress. The study doesn’t expect you to change your entire diet, join a gym and eliminate everything that triggers stress, but teaches techniques to make subtle lifestyle changes and reduce the impact of daily stress. These same techniques can also improve sleep patterns, a factor known to affect headaches. The lifestyle modification approach clarifies that while very few headaches directly result from existing acute conditions, recurring headaches often derive from a larger lifestyle factor. If these issues are ignored, the body’s natural defense mechanisms may kick into overdrive and become exhausted, leaving you susceptible to other chronic diseases. By finding and eliminating the cause of your headaches, you may be saving yourself from other eventual illnesses.

Natural Alternatives

Willing to make some lifestyle changes and step away from medications? Try these remedies, courtesy of Nature’s Pharmacy by Lynn Paige Walker, PharmD and Ellen Hodgson Brown, JD (Prentice-Hall).

For simple headaches, start with relaxation and neck stretches. Or try rubbing your forehead with peppermint oil, a natural antispasmodic and diuretic shown in German research to be as effective as acetaminophen in easing tension headaches.

Never underestimate the old-fashioned ice pack to the forehead as an effective treatment that works by constricting the swollen blood vessels that cause your head to ache. If the ice pack isn’t enough, try putting your arms in icy water up to your elbows to constrict additional blood vessels. But if it’s a sinus headache you’re fighting, take the opposite approach and try hot compresses.

The herbal, and original, form of aspirin is white willow bark. Used by Chinese practitioners 2,500 years ago, it contains salicin, nearly the same pain reliever found in aspirin. Other herbal aspirins include meadowsweet tea, just as effective as aspirin with few side effects. For migraines, Walker and Brown recommend feverfew and magnesium supplements, which reduce nerve excitability and migraine susceptibility. In fact, individuals with frequent headaches have been found to have low brain and tissue magnesium, says Julian Whitaker, MD, author of Julian Whitaker’s Guide to Natural Healing (Prima). For all headaches, Goldberg suggests essential fatty acid supplementation with evening primrose oil (EPO), which improves circulation, helps regulate inflammation and relieves pain.

The Curse of the Migraine

Migraines, a debilitating headache distinguished by a throbbing pain, may be humanity’s oldest malady. The name is derived from the word the Greek physician Galen used to describe the disorder in 200 A.D. Six-thousand-year-old Sumerian writings refer to the ravages of migraines, and prehistoric skeletons bear testimony to a crude form of trephination-holes chiseled in skulls to allow the escape of pain-creating demons, according to Lifetime Encyclopedia of Natural Remedies by Myra Cameron (Parker Publishing).

In the common migraine, throbbing pain develops gradually from distended veins around the brain and may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light. These miseries can be preceded by 15 to 90 minutes of an “aura,” which includes visual disturbances, distorted perception, hallucinations, flashes of light and temporary loss of sight or hearing. In fact, skeptical historians attribute some of the religious visions of the Middle Ages to the visual effects of migraine aura, according to Cameron.

Snacking on high fiber foods between three light meals each day helps stabilize blood sugar and prevent migraines. And while some doctors summarily attribute migraines to diet, other experts attribute at least half of all migraines to food sensitivities. The most common edible villains are aged cheeses, yeast breads, chocolate, cured meats, citrus fruits, eggs, fermented foods, wheat, milk, milk products, alcoholic drinks and food additives, including nitrates and MSG.

Suggested daily supplements for migraine-susceptible individuals include a multivitamin, one capsule of B complex to help maintain normal vascular control, 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams in divided doses of vitamin C with bioflavonoids to assist the production of anti-stress hormones, and 500 to 1,000 milligrams of magnesium to reduce nerve excitability and pain. At the onset of a migraine, says Cameron, try homeopathic remedies, dilutions of natural substances from plants, minerals and animals. For throbbing pain, take natrum muriaticum according to package directions. Other homeopathic options to explore include iris versicolar, lac defloratum and sanguinaria.

Take Charge of Your Headaches

Headache management involves managing your life. Practice relaxation techniques to reduce stress. Calmly discuss your feelings. Take a leisurely stroll at lunch. Walk your dog, or a neighbor’s dog, after dinner. Keep a food diary. Sit and stand tall. Skip the fast food tonight. Join a yoga class. Take vitamins and supplements. Get a two-hour massage. Turn the television off earlier and sleep in a little later.

Taking the time to care may take effort, but it will soon become second nature. Invest in yourself. It’s your most precious possession.