Women who are prone to migraines before they go through the menopause may have an increased risk of developing high blood pressure afterwards, a new French study has claimed.
The study by researchers at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, Paris, involved 56,202 women, none of whom had high blood pressure or cardiovascular disease at the age when their menopause began.
Out of the participants, 46,659 women never had a migraine, while the remaining 9,543 said they had. The women were followed up for up to 20 years and completed health surveys every two to three years. By the end of the study, 11,030 women reported experiencing migraine.
Writing in the latest online issue of Neurology, the authors, led by Dr Gianluca Severi, report that 12,501 women developed high blood pressure during the study, which included 9,401 of the women with no migraine and 3,100 of the women with migraine.
Women with migraine also developed high blood pressure at a younger age than women without migraine. The average age of diagnosis for women without migraine was 65 and for women with migraine was 63.
The research team calculated the risk of developing high blood pressure using person-years, recording that during the 826,419 person-years in the study, there was an overall rate of 15 cases of high blood pressure diagnosed for every 1,000 person years.
For women without migraine, the rate was 14 cases for every 1,000 person-years compared to 19 cases per 1,000 person-years for women with migraine.
The authors stress the study only shows an association between migraine and high blood pressure after menopause.
Dr Severi said: “There are multiple ways in which migraine may be linked to high blood pressure. People with migraine have been shown to have early signs of arterial stiffness. Stiffer, smaller vessels are not as capable of accommodating blood flow, resulting in pressure increases.
“It is also possible that associations could be due to genetics. Since previous research shows migraine increases the likelihood of cardiovascular events, identification of additional risk factors such as the higher likelihood of high blood pressure among people with migraine could aid in individualised treatment or prevention. Doctors may want to consider women with a history of migraine at a higher risk of high blood pressure.”
Neurology 21 April 2021
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