Young women who suffer from regular migraine attacks appear to have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, researchers warn today.
Women are three to four times more likely to experience regular migraines. The condition has previously been linked to an increased risk of stroke, but although the physiology of migraine has close links to the vascular system, the way in which migraine increases risk of stroke is unclear.
A team led by Professor Tobias Kurth of the Institute of Public Health in Berlin, Germany, looked at this association, and the link with cardiovascular disease in general.
They used details on 115,541 women aged 25 to 42 years at baseline, taking part in the US Nurses’ Health Study II, which began in 1989. Over the 20 years of follow-up, 15% of the women were diagnosed with migraine.
Cardiovascular disease was 50% more likely among the women with migraine. Heart attack was 39% more likely, stroke 62% more likely, and these women were 73% more likely to have a revascularization procedure.
In addition, women with migraine were 37% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than women without migraine, and the risk was not significantly altered by age, smoking, high blood pressure, or use of hormone medications.
Writing in the BMJ the authors state there is "a consistent link between migraine and cardiovascular disease events, including cardiovascular mortality".
They call for women with migraine to be evaluated for their vascular risk, and suggest that: "Future targeted research is warranted to identify preventive strategies."
Maureen Talbot, from the British Heart Foundation, said: “This large study of young women over a number of years, shows an association between migraine and an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
“However, further research is needed to establish a possible cause for this and also to determine if the findings apply to men and older age groups."
Commenting on the study, Dr Rebecca Burch from Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, adds that the magnitude of risk "is small at the level of the individual patient, but still important at a population level because migraine is so prevalent".
Kurth, T. et al. Migraine and risk of cardiovascular disease in women: prospective cohort study. BMJ 1 June 2016; doi: 10.1136/bmj.i2610 [abstract]
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