A major genetic study of migraine has shown the illness’s close links to the vascular system, it was announced last night.
Researchers reported nearly 30 new genetic risk factors for the disease.
The study, reported in Nature Genetics, found 38 independent genomic regions linked to the illness – of which only ten had been implicated before.
The metanalysis brought together genetic samples from some 375,000 people, including 60,000 migraine sufferers.
The researchers say most of the genomic areas overlap with known genes – and nine of these have previously been linked to vascular disease. Another four are known to be involved in the regulation of vascular tone.
Professor Aarno Palotie, of the University of Helsinki, Finland, and leader of the International Headache Genetics Consortium, said: "Our consortium is devoted to uncovering the genetic causes of migraine and during the past few years we have been able to identify many risk variants.
"Yet, in this latest, large-scale study, tens of new genetic risk factors were discovered. Because all of these variants modify the disease risk only slightly, the effect could only be seen when this large amount of samples became available."
Fellow researcher Professor John-Anker Zwart, from Oslo University Hospital, Norway, said: "These genetic findings are the first concrete step towards developing personalised, evidence-based treatments for this very complex disease.
"We doctors have known for a long time that migraine patients differ from each other and the drugs that work for some patients are completely inefficient for others."
Meta-analysis of 375,000 individuals identifies 38 susceptibility loci for migraine. Nature Genetics 20 June 2016; doi: 10.1038/ng.3598 [abstract]
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