During 1994-96, a migraine headache study was conducted in California at the Loma Linda University's School of Public Health. This study showed that a low-fat, high-complex-carbohydrate diet can dramatically lower the frequency, intensity, and duration of migraine headaches. The following text provides a brief overview of the study and its results.
For a personal consulation by Dr. Zuzana Bic, primary atuhor of the study, please visit: Lifestyle Medicine over the Phone | ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY |
| RESULTS OF THE STUDY |
| CONCLUSIONS |
| SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS |
| MAGAZINE ARTICLES |
| NEW HEADACHE BOOK |
The study was conducted over a 12-week period and was divided into three 4-week segments. The first was called the baseline period. During this time, patients were asked not to change anything in their eating or other habits, but to keep detailed food and headache diaries. The purpose was to collect data that could be compared to data gathered at the end of the study.
The first intervention was done at the end of the baseline period. This was an individual consultation with each patient lasting one hour and focused on his or her diary. Based on a computer-aided nutritional evaluation, patients were given reading materials and were individually counseled on specific strategies for changing their eating habits. The objective was to reduce their fat consumption to 20-30 grams per day, or approximately 10-15% of their total calories. Blood tests and other measurements were performed. Patients were then asked to continue keeping their headache and food diaries for the remainder of the experiment.
The next individual consultation, lasting 30 minutes, took place after the next 4-week period, the transition period. The main purpose of this consultation was to determine how successfully the patients had made the transition to the new eating patterns. Patients were given suggestions tailored individually to their specific problems to help them make the transition as effortless as possible.
The last meeting took place at the end of the third 4-week period, the final period. During this meeting, the blood tests and other measurements were repeated. The complete headache and nutritional diaries were reevaluated.
The outcome of the experiment surpassed even the most optimistic expectations. It has demonstrated clearly a very strong connection between high dietary fat intake and migraine headache. Patients who had decreased their fat intake had significantly lowered the frequency, intensity, and duration of their migraine headaches.
Migraine headache frequency refers to the number of migraine headaches per month. The participants in the study had, on average, almost nine migraine headaches during the baseline period. At the end of the study, migraine headache frequency had been reduced to an average of just over two times per month. This represents an astonishing improvement of nearly 71%!
Migraine headache intensity was measured using a rating scale. Patients were asked to give each migraine headache a number from zero to five, where zero means no headache and five corresponds to an extremely intense, incapacitating migraine headache. Before the low-fat/high-complex-carbohydrate intervention, patients reported an average migraine headache intensity close to three. By the end of the study, this dropped to below one. That is, migraine headache intensity decreased by about 66%!
Migraine headache duration is nearly impossible to measure directly since migraine headaches sometimes originate or end in the middle of sleep, and the exact starting or ending times are unknown. For that reason, a special measure, called the headache index, was used, which reliably reflects migraine headache duration. The diet intervention resulted in a decrease of about 74%!
Medication intake was determined by the number of days per month that patients took headache medication. Before starting the low-fat/high-complex-carbohydrate diet, patients took pain medication of various kinds approximately 10 times per month. At the end study, pain medication use dropped to only three times a month--a decrease of 72%!
Nearly all participants (94%) reported at least a 40% improvement in the frequency, intensity, and duration of their migraine headaches; many were completely migraine-free. Only a small fraction of participants (6%) reported little or no noticeable improvement in their condition.
The results of Loma Linda University study show clearly that balanced nutrition plays a major role in the prevention of migraine headaches. This finding contradicts other studies, which have concluded that nutrition has little or no impact on migraine headache. This conflict is easily resolved. The studies considered different types of food groups and their influence on migraine headache. The food groups, however, were chosen not by the amount of total fat or sugar, but rather by the levels of other substances, such as tyramine. Since all food groups had similar amounts of fat and sugar, it is not surprising that no significant connection with migraine headache was found.
The Loma Linda University study demonstrated beyond any doubt that a low-fat/high-complex- carbohydrate diet significantly decreases the occurrence of migraine headaches and, consequently, the usage of pain medication. One of the most important contributions of the study was to identify increased levels of blood fat as the common denominator of primary headaches. These findings linked together a multitude of seemingly unrelated headache triggers, all of which cause levels of blood fat to rise. This opened the path toward a radically new treatment of headaches based on specific lifestyle modifications to reduce blood fat levels and to restore the body's natural biochemical balances necessary to prevent headaches.
This new book, which is based on the Loma Linda Univeristy study, is a practical self-help guide for migraine sufferers. It presents an easy-to-follow program to avoid the pain of migraine headaches through gradual lifestyle modification. To find out more about this new approach to migraine headache prevention, click on:
by Zuzana Bic, Dr.P.H., and L. Francis Bic, Ph.D.
Avery Publishing Group, NY, 1999, $10.95
ISBN: 0-89529-924-0
Also available through the Internet at:
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