Fewer pounds can mean fewer migraines

SATURDAY, March 23, 2019 (HealthDay News) – New research shows that losing weight can cause a lot of weight in overweight people with migraines.

"When people lose weight, the number of days a month with migraine decreases, as does the intensity of the pain and the duration of the attack of the headache," said the principal investigator, the Dr. Claudio Pagano. He is an badociate professor of internal medicine at the University of Padova in Italy.

The Pagano team reviewed data from 10 different studies involving 473 migraine patients in total. The badysis showed that weight loss was badociated with a significant decrease in the frequency, duration, pain and disability of the migraine.

The benefits were similar, whether weight reductions were achieved through weight loss surgery or changes in diet and exercise, and were similar in children and adults.

Your overweight at the start, however, did not seem to matter. Improvements in migraine were not related to either the initial level of obesity or the total amount of weight loss, reported the Pagano group.

The results were to be presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in New Orleans.

In conclusion, "if you suffer from migraines and are obese, losing weight will improve the quality of your family and social life, as well as your productivity at work and at school." will improve considerably, "said Mr Pagano. .

"Weight loss in adults and children with obesity greatly improves migraines by improving all the major features that make quality of life worse for migraine sufferers," he added in a press release.

There should also be an effect of training on other health problems, suggested Pagano. "Weight loss reduces the impact of conditions badociated with obesity, including diabetes, hypertension [high blood pressure], coronary heart disease, stroke and respiratory diseases, "he said.

Why could obesity aggravate migraine? The reasons are unclear, explain the researchers, but could involve changes in chronic inflammation, some proteins released by adipose tissue, obesity-related health problems and behavioral risk factors and psychological.

Dr. Noah Rosen heads the Northwell Health Headache Treatment Center in Great Neck, NY. He then noted that it was odd "that there is no evidence that the weight at departure or the importance of the lost weight matter" comes to the improvement of migraine related to weight loss.

"It's good to know that losing weight is beneficial, but it would be better to know why and what is the best way to get it," Rosen said.

An expert in weight loss said the findings were consistent with what we know about weight and health.

"The finding that with weight loss, headaches, and migraines alleviate, is not surprising: when balance is maintained, all systems improve." "said Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of the Obesity Surgery Department at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

Since these results were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (CVA) has more about migraine.