Have migraine? Belly fat may be the culprit

New York, February 14:It has been already established that belly fat significantly increases the risk of heart diseases and diabetes. Now in a new research, experts have found that it may dramatically increase the risk of migraines in young and middle-aged adults.

A new U.S. study conducted on more than 22000 subjects, links big waistlines to migraines or other severe headaches. The study suggests that like other migraines-boosting factors such as age and gender, abdominal obesity can also be a risk for migraine headaches.

The study results show that people who carry extra weight around their middle are at significantly elevated risk to have migraines than those who are thin.

To find out the link between abdominal fat and migraine headaches, researchers from Philadelphia's Drexel College School of Medicine collected data from 22,211 people enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

For the study, the researchers measured the abdominal obesity by waist circumference or the total size around the waist. The overall obesity was also measured by using the body mass indexdefine (BMI), a measurement related to weight and height.

All the study participants were asked to report whether they suffered from either migraine or severe headaches.

After examining the data, lead researcher B. Lee Peterlin of Drexel University College of Medicine and colleagues found that young and middle-aged adults with larger waistlines were more likely to suffer from migraines or other severe headaches.

To be more precise, people who were 20 to 55 years of age and who had excessive body fat around the belly were more likely to have migraine attacks than those of the same age but had smaller waistlines.

"This is the age when migraine is most prevalent," Peterlin said. "Our findings suggest that both general obesity and abdominal obesity are associated with an increased prevalence of migraine in this age group."

Peterlin and fellow researchers found that about 37 percent of women between the ages of 20 and 55 who had larger waistlines reported migraine, while only 29 percent of women without excess belly fat reported these problems.

In men 20 to 55 years old, 20 percent of those with abdominal obesity reported they experienced frequent episodes of migraines as compared to 16 percent of those without excess abdominal fat.

“These results, while still in the early stages, suggest that losing weight in the stomach area may be beneficial for younger people who experience migraine and especially so for women,” Peterlin said.

Migraines are severe headaches that are more common in women than in men and run in families. According to latest estimates from the National Headache Foundation, nearly 30 million people in the United States report migraine headaches.

"Men and women have body tissue distributed in different ways. After puberty women show more fatty tissue deposits in the hip and thigh area while men predominantly have more fatty tissue in the belly region. After menopause, women show more fatty tissue in the belly area as well. For some diseases, including heart disease and diabetes, excess fat around the waistline appears to be a stronger risk factor than total body obesity," says Peterlin, who will present her findings at the American Academy of Neurology's 61st Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25 to May 2, 2009.