Anxiety and stress predict migraine
20 December 2001
LONDON By health-newswire.com reporters People who score highly on anxiety and stress scales are significantly more likely to suffer from adult migraine than those with lower levels of these conditions, according to a New Zealand study in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Dr Karen Waldie and colleagues from the University of Auckland
also found that neck and back injuries sustained during childhood predict a risk
of tension headaches in adulthood.
It is already known that severe headaches can seriously impact on daily life,
however, possible physical and psychological causes for migraine, tension-type
headaches (TTHs) or a combination of the two have yet to be determined.
In this latest study, the researchers followed 979 participants of a long-term
research study to determine factors that may predispose them to certain types of
headache by the age of 26.
International Headache Society criteria were used to determine whether the
participants were migraine or TTH sufferers and were assessed in terms of
perinatal problems, injuries sustained, and behavioural, personality and
psychiatric disorders experienced in childhood and adolescence.
Around one-quarter of participants had suffered frequent headaches in the past
year – 7 per cent of whom were found to have experienced migraines, 11 per
cent to have had tension headaches and 4 per cent to have had combined
headaches.
Women were significantly more likely to have experienced all types of headache
than men, and the presence of a mother prone to migraines increased the risk. A
history of headache during childhood also predisposed adults to both migraine
and TTH.
Anxiety symptoms and disorders during childhood and adolescence were related to
migraine, but perinatal complications and neurological trauma were not related
to headache status.
The researchers concluded that stress and anxiety early in life predispose
sufferers to migraine. The different types of headache appear to have different
contributing factors and may develop differently.
© Health Media Ltd 2001
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