A team of researchers led by Dr. Jelena Pavlovic of the Bronx School of Medicine, Nex-York, have found a link between fluctuations in estrogen levels in women and migraine attacks. According to their study published in the journal of the American Neurological Societywomen whose estrogen levels drop rapidly in the days preceding their period would be more likely to suffer from migraine.
The faster the fall in estrogen, the more vulnerable women are
For this study, the researchers followed 114 women with a history of migraine and 223 women who had never experienced this throbbing headache. The average age of the group was 47 years old.
All participants in the study kept a diary in which they noted the monitoring of their hormone levels throughout their menstrual cycle. This is what allowed the researchers to discover that women who suffered from migraines had estrogen levels that dropped by 40% just before their period, while those who did not have migraines had hormone levels that only fell by 30%.
“These results suggest that the faster estrogen declines, the more vulnerable it makes women to migraine triggers such as the stressthe lack of sleepor certain foods the researchers point out.
Yesterday, another study revealed that women with migraine had greater risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease.
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