An illicit love affair could be fatal: Study warns

Italy, October 5: Having an extra marital affair can do more harm than just hurting your marriage. An illicit romantic and sexual relationship could prove fatal, especially for migraine sufferers, warns a novel Italian study.

According to Italian researchers, the illicit love affair can leave a person with extreme migraine, a type of headache marked by severe head pain lasting several hours or more, and the risk increases for those who already suffer regular headaches.

Migraine is an intense, often debilitating type of headache that can cause a fatal aneurysm, a localized, blood-filled dilation (bulge) of a blood vessel caused by disease or weakening of the vessel wall.

“This type of headache can be exacerbated by a series of factors like aphrodisiac food, performance-enhancing drugs, physical strain and psychological stress caused by the need to keep the relationship secret,” said Lorenzo Pinessi, president of the Italian Society for the Study of Migraines, who carried out the study.

“It can trigger extremely strong migraine attacks lasting up to three hours. In three to four per cent of cases they may cause a cerebral aneurysm. The danger increases if the relationship is illicit or extra-marital,” he added.

Pinessi and colleagues, who presented their findings at the opening of an international conference last week, reached their conclusion after studying hundreds of Italian patients who reported migraines. They found that some of the worst affected were having extramarital affairs.

"What we found is that it was mostly men who suffered worst from this phenomenon, which is all to do with stress and hypertension (high blood pressure),” Pinessi said.

"It would appear that men have a more severe feeling of guilt when cheating which leads to increased stress and tension."

The researchers also found that those who had headaches were more vulnerable to migraines, and a small percentage went on to suffer fatal aneurysm. In addition, a person who is cheating in marriage undergoes the immense stress of handling both married life and extramarital relationship.

Pinessi advices frazzled adulterers to take a time-out from their extra affair and have a brain scan, adding that the headache-prone cheats should avoid the Karma Sutra and stick to simple sexual intercourse to limit pressure on the heart.

The best way of curbing the stress and tension is that one should stop cheating, he concluded.