A new study from Aarhus University in Denmark has found that women and men who experience migraine headaches are found to have an increased risk of developing an ischemic stroke which occurs when a blood clot obstructs a blood vessel leading to the brain. The study published in the journal PLOS Medicine also suggests that women with migraine may be at a higher risk of developing heart attacks and haemorrhagic strokes, which is caused by ruptured blood vessels bleeding into the brain. These findings provide new information about how migraines affect people differently based on their gender, paving the way for early diagnosis and prevention.
Previous studies have found that people with migraines have a higher likelihood of experiencing a heart attack or stroke before the age of 60. “However, there was a knowledge gap that remained in sex-specific differences associated with migraine and ischemic stroke, heart attack, and haemorrhagic strokes, which our team has uncovered in this study,” Dr Cecilia Hvitfeldt Fuglsang, the first author of this study, department of clinical epidemiology, Aarhus University, Denmark tells Happiest Health.
Building bridges
To bridge this gap, Dr Fuglsang and team conducted a study using Danish medical records collected between 1996 and 2018. The study involved individuals aged 18 to 60, and those with migraines were identified based on their prescription drug records.
From this data, a total of 25,274 women and 7,397 men with migraine were separated from the individuals without migraine. The researchers then separated the data based on sex, after which they compared these two data categories to find if women alone are at higher risk of ischemic, haemorrhagic, and heart attack before the age of 60.
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Contradicting discovery
Contradicting the previous studies, they found that both men and women with migraine have a similar risk of having an ischemic stroke. “We found that migraine appears to be associated with a similar increase in risk of ischemic stroke for men and women,” says Dr Fuglsang.
The researchers suggest that although both men and women with migraines face an increased risk of ischemic stroke, women with migraines have a slightly higher risk of heart attack and haemorrhagic stroke compared to men with migraines and the general population. “However, the increased risk of a heart attack or haemorrhagic stroke may only exist among women,” Dr Fuglsang observes.
The researchers also noted the use of prescription medicine by individuals with migraine. The recorded medicines taken for conditions like blood pressure, heart disease, and platelet inhibitors indicate the contribution of migraines to these health problems.
Looking ahead
The researchers say that this study confirms previous studies linking migraine to the risk of stroke and heart attacks. Given that heart attack and stroke can result in long-term disabilities, identifying individuals at a higher risk is crucial to enable targeted preventive therapies. “However, migraine medication on the heart should be studied in greater detail to draw further conclusions,” says Dr Fuglsang.
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