Certain foods or medicines high in nitrates could cause migraineaccording to the results ofa study published in the medical journal MSystems. So beware of cold cuts, processed meats, food additives, green vegetables and certain treatments used against cardiovascular illnesses.
Nitrates are compounds present in certain drugs treating cardiac pathologies. These treatments are often quite poorly tolerated because of the headaches they trigger (80% of patients claim to suffer from them, 10% are forced to stop their treatment because the pain becomes unbearable). As a result, researchers at the San Diego School of Medicine in the United States wanted to establish whether there was a link between nitrates and migraine. They took oral swabs from migraine sufferers and from other non-migraine sufferers who also filled out a food diary and the frequency of their headaches.
Study results showed that participants who had high levels of nitrate-, nitrite-, and nitric-oxide-reducing bacteria were more susceptible to migraines. “This could be explained by the fact that, during food or drug intake of an element rich in nitrates, these bacteria present in the mouth massively degrade the nitrate, thus triggering migraine attacks”, explains Dr. Embriette Hyde , researcher and author of the study.
The next steps in this research will be to understand the exact process of operation of these nitrate, nitrite and nitric oxide reducing bacteria in the onset of migraine attacks.
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