A large study led by the Charité Medical University in Berlin shows no link between migraine and the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease in women aged 45 years and older.
Writing in the journal Neurology, the investigators report that the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease over did not appear to be influenced by migraine regardless of the kind of migraine or frequency over more than 20 years of follow up.
“These results are reassuring for women who have migraine, which itself causes many burdens, that they don’t have to worry about an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease in the future,” said study author Tobias Kurth, from the Institute of Public Health at Charité Medical University in Berlin, in a press statement.
Some previous research has suggested that a diagnosis of migraine, particularly migraine with aura, could increase a person’s chance of developing Parkinson’s disease, but large long-term follow up studies in this area are rare. It is also unclear if the conditions often occur together, or if an earlier life neurological condition such as migraine could increase a person’s later-life risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
The current study used data from the Women’s Health Study, which is a large U.S.-based cohort study of women in health professions who were recruited in the early 1990’s when aged 45 years or older.
Overall, 39,312 women were included in the current analysis. Of these, 7,321 reported some history of migraine when they joined the study. Over a follow-up period of 22 years, 685 women in the group developed Parkinson’s disease.
No significant increase in risk for Parkinson’s was seen in women with migraine in the study versus those without the condition after correcting for possible confounding factors such as age, alcohol consumption, smoking status and physical activity (HR=1.07). This finding continued even when timing and type of migraine was taken into account.
Although this study was large, the researchers point out that the self-reported status of both migraine and Parkinson’s disease in the study could have influenced the accuracy of the results.
In addition, “since this study involved only female health professionals who were primarily white people, more research is needed to determine whether the results will apply to other groups, including men, women and other races, ethnicities and gender identities,” Kurth added.
