Migraine Episodes Linked to Parkinson's Disease Risk

Suffering two migraine diagnoses in the space of one year is associated with a greater risk of developing Parkinson's disease (PD) three years later, according to a new study.

Researchers at National Taiwan University Hospital (Taipei) conducted a longitudinal population-based study involving 41,019 subjects (40–90 years of age) with at least two ambulatory visits with a diagnosis of migraine during the year 2001; the control group consisted of 41,019 migraine-free randomly sampled subjects matched by sex, age, comorbidity, and socioeconomic data. The researchers then measured PD-free survival rate and estimated the effect of migraine presence on the risk of developing PD.

The results showed that during a median 32-month follow-up, 148 patients in the migraine group and 101 patients in the non-migraine group were diagnosed with PD, suggesting a statistically significant increase in risk for those with migraine. The researchers listed several explanations for the results, suggesting that both migraines and PD could be the result of serotonergic and dopaminergic system dysfunction, or that both ailments could arise from dysfunctional iron metabolism in the brain. The study was published on February 6, 2016, in Cephalalgia.

“Since this study is an observational study, it is subject to confounding effects arising from imbalance in clinical characteristics between patients with and without migraine. These findings may highlight the importance of early risk assessment for Parkinson's disease in migraineurs,” said senior author Prof. Shin-Liang Pan, MD, PhD. “Future longitudinal studies with neuroimaging and neurologic examinations are needed in order to elucidate the relationship and the underlying pathophysiological mechanism between migraine and Parkinson's disease.”

Migraine is a debilitating condition characterized by moderate to severe headaches, and is about three times more common in women than in men. The typical migraine headache is aggravated by routine activity, and is unilateral and pulsating in nature, lasting from 4 to 72 hours. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, photophobia, and phonophobia. Approximately one-third of people who suffer from migraine headaches perceive an aura—an unusual visual, olfactory, or other sensory experience that is a sign that the migraine will soon occur.

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