by
Joan Trombetti, Writer | September 03, 2007
In a report released in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association (Sep 2007; 38: 2438 - 2445), researchers reported that women who have migraine headaches with visual symptoms may be at increased risk for stroke compared to women who do not have migraines. Adding in other factors like smoking, oral contraceptives and recent onset of these headaches adds to the risk.
According to Steven Kittner, M.D., M.P.H, senior author of the study and staff physician at Baltimore Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the Maryland Stroke Center in Baltimore -- "women with recent onset of probable migraine with visual symptoms (within the prior year) were almost seven times more likely to have a stroke compared to women with no history of migraines." Kittner also said that the most important finding was that women who had probable migraine with visual symptoms who also smoked and used oral contraceptives had seven times the risk of stroke than women who had probable migraine with visual symptoms alone.
In the study, researchers analyzed stroke incidence among 386 women who were 15 to 49 years of age with a first ischemic stroke and 14 women of similar ages and ethnicities who had not had a stroke. Based on their responses to a questionnaire, the women were classified into three categoriers: having no migraine; probable migraine without visual aura; or probable migraine with visual aura.
The researchers also reported that compared to women with no history of migraine, women with probable migraine with visual symptoms had a 1.5 greater chance of suffering an ischemic stroke.
Dr. Kittner said that young women with probable migraine with visual symptoms should stop smoking and find alternatives to using estrongen-containing contraceptives to reduce their risk of having a stroke. He went on to say that as alarming as the findings sounded, the chance that a woman in the 15-44 age group will have an ischemic stroke is very low -- one-to-two for every 10,000 people each year.
