Severely obese individuals who suffered from debilitating migraines before undergoing bariatric surgery reported considerable improvements in symptoms severity, frequency of migraine attacks, and less disability during the six-month follow-up after their operation, researchers from The Miriam Hospital reported in the medical journal Neurology.

As well as enjoying significantly fewer and less severe migraine attacks, by the end of the six months the average weight loss of the study participants was 66.4 pounds.

Lead author Dale Bond, Ph.D., said:

“Obesity is thought to contribute to worsening of migraine, particularly for severely obese individuals, yet no study has examined whether weight loss can actually improve migraine headaches in these patients. Our study provides evidence that weight loss may be an important part of a migraine treatment plan for obese patients.”

The authors explained that about 28 million people in the USA get migraines – the majority of them are female. Experts are not completely sure why they occur, but believe they are linked to abnormal brain activity which is set off by certain foods, environmental factors, stress, and some other factors.

A migraine is a severe, painful, often throbbing (pounding) headache that is frequently preceded or accompanied by some kind of sensory warning, such as flashing lights, tingling in arms and legs, nausea, blind spots, vomiting, and increased sensitivity to sound and light. The excruciating pain brought on by a migraine can last from a few hours to days. The blood vessels in the head become enlarged, and certain chemicals are released from nerve fibers that coil around the blood vessels. During a migraine attack the temporal artery enlarges, causing a release of chemicals that cause pain, inflammation and more enlargement of the artery.

Although migraines are not specifically curable, certain drugs can help reduce the number of episodes.

Dr. Bond and team examined 24 participants who were severely obese with an average BMI of 46.6 before bariatric surgery; they all suffered from migraines. 88% of them were female. They were all middle-aged. Over half of them underwent laparoscopic gastric banding surgery, the rest opted for Roux-enY gastric bypass. At 6 months the average BMI as 34.6.

The investigators gathered data on each participant with the aid of a standard migraine questionnaire. They were all assesed before their operation and six months afterwards.

They found that after surgery the vast majority of patients experience fewer headaches, nearly half of them reported a 50% reduction in frequency. They also found that those who lost the most weight at the end of the six months appeared to enjoy the best migraine-protecting benefits.

Not only did most of them experience fewer bouts of migraine, but also less severe and disabling ones when they did come. The percentage of participants reporting that their migraines were disabling to the point of requiring medical treatment and intervention dropped from approximately 50% before bariatric surgery to just 12.5% six months afterwards.

Bond said:

“It’s interesting to note that headache improvements occurred postoperatively even though 70 percent of participants were still considered obese six months after surgery. These findings suggest weight loss can help alleviate migraines even though an individual’s obesity has not been fully resolved.”

Whether smaller, behavioral weight loss interventions might produce similar beneficial results is unknown, Bond added, saying that further studies are required to find this out.

Over half the US adult population is obese/overweight, and the rate is still growing. Obesity is associated with several health risks, including some cancers, hypertension (high blood pressure), heart disease, diabetes type 2, and depression.

“Improvement of migraine headaches in severely obese patients after bariatric surgery”
D.S. Bond, PhD, S. Vithiananthan, MD, J.M. Nash, PhD, J.G. Thomas, PhD and R.R. Wing, PhD
Neurology March 29, 2011 vol. 76 no. 13 1135-1138
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e318212ab1e

Written by Christian Nordqvist