The likelihood of suffering from a migraine attack increases as temperatures rise, according to a new study conducted by the University of Cincinnati in collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital (New York).
I study
The study analyzed more than seventy thousand written accounts of people suffering from migraines, and discovered a correlation between rising temperatures and an increase in headaches. When the daily temperature increased by 5.5 °C, the risk of suffering from migraines increased by 6%. “We have confirmed that rising temperatures are a significant factor in increasing the risk of migraines in all regions of the United States,” said Vincent Martin, MD, lead author of the study and president of the National Headache Foundation. Moreover, as Al Peterlin, former chief meteorologist for the United States Department of Agriculture, pointed out: “Hippocrates, the father of medicine, believed that weather and medicine were closely linked. Two thousand years later we are demonstrating that climate really does play a crucial role in health.”
The researchers also tested the response to a monoclonal antibody used for migraine, which inhibits the protein CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide). This protein has a vasodilatory action and is involved in the mechanisms of pain transmission to the central and peripheral nervous system, blocking its action is in fact one of the methods currently used for the treatment of headache pain.
In patients treated with this drug, the correlation with environmental temperature did not occur, indirectly confirming its role in the genesis of migraine attacks.
