Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Weather Causes Headaches

"Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - who studied 7,000 emergency-room visitors over a seven-year period - reported yesterday that headache-related hospital visits increased in the 24 hours after air temperatures rose. Lower barometric pressure in the 48 to 72 hours before a patient's arrival was also associated with a higher risk of headache.

The study used weather records and air pollution readings from a monitor on the roof of the Countway Library of Medicine and matched them to headache diagnoses from emergency doctors. For every temperature increase of 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) in 24 hours, there was a 7.5 percent higher risk of severe headache. For every 5 millimeters the barometric pressure reading fell over 72 hours, there was a 6 percent higher risk of headache. There was no clear association with air pollutants."

...From today's Boston Globe. Lots of us concur.

Migraine may "Prevent" Breast Cancer

Scientists know that falling estrogen levels can lead to migraine in some women. The same decrease in estrogen may lower breast cancer risk. Physician's First Watch reports:

"Researchers pooled data from two studies of postmenopausal women to compare odds ratios among 1900 with breast cancer and 1400 controls. Women with a migraine diagnosis showed reduced risks for ductal and lobular carcinomas — especially hormone-receptor–positive tumors.

The authors speculate that the effect derives from the association between migraine and estrogen. "Low levels of serotonin are clearly associated with increased frequency of migraine, and estrogen positively regulates serotonin," they write."

USA Today covers the angles and includes interviews with some scientists who are not so sure about a causal relationship between migraine and estrogen. Another calls the findings interesting but without much practical application. The original study appears in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention. 

Migraine Update from Scientific American

Migraine. If you've had them or know someone who struggles with them, you'll be interested in this article from the Scientific American web site. Here are a few summary points they provide:

• Migraine is more than a headache: it is intensely painful and has distinct phases.
• The disorder used to be considered a vascular one, but recent research reveals it to be neurological, related to a wave of nerve cell activity that sweeps across the brain.
• The root of migraine may reside in brain stem malfunctioning.
• Although debate swirls about the precise cause of migraine, discoveries are already permitting the development of new treatments

Some of the parallels between migraine and epilepsy are fairly fascinating.

Autism and Vaccines: Autism One Conference, Chicago

AMEDnews reports evenhandedly on the Autism One conference, which was held in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend.One of the featured speakers was Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British physician whose 1998 paper in The Lancet claimed an association between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism in 12 kids. But this is what's happened since then, quoting from AMEDNews:

"Every so often, a small study such as the one conducted by Dr. Wakefield comes along to buttress that belief. In this case, the momentum has held, even though 10 of the 13 authors on the 1998 paper published a statement inThe Lancet in 2004 retracting the original interpretation that their data indicated a causal link between MMR and autism, and Dr. Wakefield faces significant professional scrutiny."

That is, Dr. Wakefield is in danger of losing his license to practice. In June, the UK health authorities declared that measles is now endemic in that country and confirmed a recent measles-related death. In the US, measles rates are at their highest since 2001. It's more than spots: encephalitis and pneumonia are just two possible complications.

Damage done.

Taking your blood pressure med may cure your headache

Medications that reduce blood pressure may also reduce the incidence of headaches in some people, according to this report in the new issue of Circulation, a publication for heart specialists. They conducted a meta-analysis, which is a kind of super-study. In this case, the mata-analysis included 94  studies of hypertenstion treatment and 24,000 people. In each individual study, participants took either a placebo or a blood pressure medication. One-third fewer headaches were reported by people taking the real medications, which came from one of four categories: thiazide diuretics, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, or angiotensin II receptor antagonists. These medications work by different mechanisms, so it seems that the beneficial effect on headache occurred because of blood pressure reductions, not as a good side effect of one of the drugs.