PainRelief.com Interview with:
Kathleen R. Merikangas, Ph.D.
NIH Distinguished Investigator
Chief of the Genetic Epidemiology Research Branch
Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health
Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: We have been studying differences in patterns of migraine in males and females and how it changes across the life span. We focus on recruiting people from the general community rather than those who come to clinical settings who tend to have more severe cases of headaches. This allows us to gather information that can generalize to the community. We have taken advantage of the widespread use of mobile phones to administer assessments of physical and mental health in real time naturalistic settings.
The question that we addressed in this paper was whether we could identify changes in mental or physical health that may be related to the onset of headache on the next day. identifying potential triggers of headache attacks can help us to avoid them when possible, to intervene as early as possible in the progression of headache attacks, and to gain insight into the underlying biologic and environmental factors involved in migraine.
PainRelief.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: The importance of monitoring their daily activity, sleep, eating and mood to identify constellations of factors that could be related to migraine attacks. Maintaining regular schedules has also been shown to reduce the incidence of headaches.
Response: How can healthcare professionals interpret the study?
Response: First, the most important take home message is that health professionals can take advantage of digital technologies that enable people to track daily health and behavior in real time rather than using the traditional clinical rating scales and interviews that are inherently retrospective in nature.
Second, our work highlights the central role of arousal systems involving energy and sleep as precursors to headache. Clinical evaluation of sleep, physical activity is therefore important in the comprehensive evaluation of people with migraine.
PainRelief.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: Our future research will study causes of changes in energy and poor sleep that may be involved in the development of headache attacks. Studies that can examine differences in the predictors of migraine compared to tension type headaches will also be important.
PainRelief.com: Is there anything else you would like to add? Any disclosures?
Response: This work does not include all potential triggers of migraine such as hormonal changes of the menstrual cycle in females that have been well established triggers of migraine attacks. Likewise, we did not include factors such as such as dehydration and low sugar induced by lack of regular eating and drinking across the day, specific dietary agents such as alcohol, caffeine, soy products and alcohol that have been shown to trigger headaches in susceptible individuals. Encouragement of regular drinking and eating has been shown to offset up to 30% of headaches in youth for example.
This work was based on cross sectional snapshot so may not generalize across the year. We are now embedding this work in a comprehensive study of the rhythms of mood disorders and comorbid physical conditions in a study entitled “Rhythms and Blues” at the NIH.
Caveats: This work was based on cross sectional snapshot so may not generalize across the year. We are now embedding this work in a comprehensive study of the rhythms of mood disorders and comorbid physical conditions in a study entitled “Rhythms and Blues” at the NIH.
Disclosures: This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health.
No conflicts of interest for any of the authors
Citation: Association Between Electronic Diary–Rated Sleep, Mood, Energy, and Stress With Incident Headache in a Community-Based Sample
Neurology, 102(4), e208102. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000208102
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Last Updated on February 16, 2024 by PainRelief.com