Migraines harmless to brain, study shows

Migraines harmless to brain, study shows

A new study indicates that debilitating migraines do not cause brain damage and the encouraging findings may provide some form of reassurance for sufferers of this type of headaches. The migraine study appeared this week in the online version of the British Medical Journal.

"It is almost always the first question that migraine patients ask," said study author Christophe Tzourio, doctor at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. "Today we can provide an answer: there's nothing to worry about," he said.

Tzourio's team looked at how tiny lesions in micro vessels inside the brain can develop in people who suffer from migraines. Previous studies suggest that this damage is likely to occur due to a disruption of the blood supply to the brain's white matter. This kind of brain damage has been documented in diabetics, seniors and people with high blood pressure. If the damage is severe enough, they can lead to a higher risk of stroke, depression, Alzheimer's disease and general cognitive decline.

During the study, the researchers tested a group of 800 elderly people, 15 percent of whom had migraines, in Nantes, France for their cognitive function. Their findings showed that the cognitive abilities of migraine sufferers did not vary much from those who did not have the headaches. Even those who had the worst kind of migraines, those with auras, were not any worse than those without migraines.

"In spite of the increased presence of lesions of the brain micro vessels, this disorder does not increase the risk of cognitive decline," Tzourio said in a news release about the migraine study.

Posted by George Daniels on Friday January 21 2011, 1:52 AM EDT. Ref: Inquirer. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0