Yoga May Help Improve Migraine
PHILADELPHIA—Yoga may be a safe and effective adjuvant therapy to conventional medical management for patients with migraine and could even help patients become headache-free, according to new findings presented at the American Headache Society’s 61st Annual Scientific Meeting.
Researchers arrived at their conclusion after conducting a prospective randomized controlled trial with blinded endpoint assessment. A total of 160 eligible patients with migraine at a neurology outpatient clinic were enrolled, and 114 completed the study.
Patients were randomly assigned to either a “medical group,” which received medication alone, or a “yoga group,” which received a combination of medication and yoga. At baseline, mean headache frequency was higher in the yoga group compared with the medical group (9.07 vs 7.7 headache days per month).
Primary outcomes of the study were defined as frequency and intensity of headaches and Headache Impact Test (HIT) score. Secondary outcomes included Migraine Disability Assessment Score (MIDAS), rescue medications used (measured via pill count), and the proportion of patients who became headache-free. All outcomes were assessed at 3 months.
The results of the study indicated that patients in the yoga group experienced a significant decrease in headache frequency (9.3 to 3.1), headache intensity (8.3 to 4.6), HIT score (66.9 to 49.0), MIDAS (24.6 to 7.5), and pill counts (7.10 to 2.7) compared with patients in the medical treatment group.
Notably, 12.28% of patients in the yoga group became headache-free after 3 months, whereas no patients in the medical therapy group became headache-free.
“Integration of yoga therapy as an adjuvant to conventional medical therapy is effective and safe in patients [with] migraine,” the researchers concluded. “Based on results of this study, yoga should be recommended to migraine patients in addition to their standard pharmacotherapy for optimizing clinical improvement and reducing disability.”
—Christina Vogt
Reference:
Kuma A. Effect of yoga as add on therapy in migraine (CONTAIN): a randomized controlled study. Paper presented at: American Headache Society 61st Annual Scientific Meeting; July 11-14, 2019; Philadelphia, PA.