Migraine With Aura May Raise Stroke Risk
Migraines are not associated with an increased risk of stroke, according to the findings of a recent study. However, modest increases in risk for stroke might be associated with familial factors and migraine with aura.
In their study, the researchers assessed headache questionnaires completed by twins without prior cerebrovascular disease. Participants were followed for a mean 11.9 years, and their data was linked to national registers to determine incidence of stroke. The researchers defined migraine with and without aura and probable migraine using algorithm mapping on to clinical diagnostic criteria based on the International Classification of Headache Disorders. Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess the relationship between migraine and stroke risk.
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Overall, 3553 twins had migraine with aura, 5082 had non-aura migraineous headache, including probable migraine and migraine without aura, and 44,769 twins did not experienced migraines. During follow-up, 1297 cases of stroke were observed.
The age- and gender-adjusted hazard ratios for stroke were 1.27 for migraine with aura and 1.07 for any migraineous headache. While this finding was similar in multivariable adjusted analyses, the within-pair analysis showed that the relationship between migraine with aura and stroke was attenuated.
In addition, the estimated hazard ratio for stroke was higher for twins younger than 50 years of age and for females. However, this finding was not considered significant.
“In conclusion, we observed no increased stroke risk related to migraine overall but there was a modestly increased risk for stroke related to migraine with aura, and within-pair analyses suggested that familial factors might contribute to this association,” the researchers concluded.
—Melissa Weiss
Reference:
Lantz M, Sieurin J, Sjölander A, Waldenlind E, Sjöstrand C, Wirdefeldt K. Migraine and risk of stroke: a national population-based twin study [published online September 26, 2017]. Brain. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awx223.