Smoking provokes migraine attacks

[Posted: Thu 25/06/2009 by Olivia Fens]

Smoking more than five cigarettes a day can bring on a migraine attack, new research indicates.

In the study of more than 360 people, researchers from the University of Salamanca in Spain found that migraine frequency in smokers was significantly higher compared to non-smoking migraine sufferers.

“Smoking is a precipitating factor of this type of headache. There is a direct relationship between the number of cigarettes consumed and the frequency of migraine attacks,” the researchers said.

Previous research had indicated that smoking could improve migraines by reducing anxiety, one of the factors that triggers an attack.

But the researchers said that their study now shows that smokers have more migraine attacks and that smoking more than five cigarettes a day triggers this headache.

“The supposed migraine cure ends up becoming its cause,” the researchers said.

“We can now see that the brain of a migraine sufferer links an attack with precipitating stimuli such as tobacco,” they concluded.

The study was published in The Journal of Headache and Pain.