What causes migraines, though? Well, we don't really know.
While there are some over-the-counter medications available that can reduce the pain brought on by migraines, only when we have a full understanding of the cause of these headaches can we be more effective in our treatments.
Thanks to researchers in genetics, we are one step closer to answering this question. You might be surprised what they found.
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The pain from a migraine can stop you in your tracks and torment you for hours.
The pain seems to pulsate with your heartbeat...
...and you become extremely sensitive to light and block it at all costs.
For the longest time, doctors had no satisfying answer to why people get these kinds of headaches. We know that certain types of painkillers are particularly good at treating them, but the root cause has been a mystery.
New genetic research has now given us a hint concerning what in the body causes migraines. Maybe the cause has more to do with your overall health than something wrong with your brain tissue...
A study published in the journal Nature Geneticslooked at the genetic profiles of 59,674 individuals with migraines and 316,078 without migraines to determine what genes may predict the presence of the headaches.
38 genetic loci (in other words, 38 spots on the genetic sequence) were found to be related to those individuals with migraines.
Interestingly, these particular loci have long been associated with the function of crucial bodily systems, not brain tissue.
One might expect that the brain tissue itself is abnormal and may cause a headache from time to time, but that's not necessarily the case.
The gene loci tagged in migraine sufferers have been related in the past to vascular and muscular function. In other words, it's possible that your body's ability to properly pump blood to the brain could be contributing to migraine headaches.
More work needs to be done to fully characterize what about the vascular system results in migraines.
I'm going to go out there and highlight that an interesting connection has already been made between exercise and migraines. Exercise has been shown to increase the efficiency of blood flow in the body and also has been shown to reduce the occurrence of migraines. Perhaps exercise will become a go-to therapy for chronic migraine sufferers. Regardless, new discoveries concerning the root cause of migraines are beginning to emerge, and that's a great thing.
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