Women Migraine Sufferers at Risk for Depression

Namita Nayyar (WF Team)

13 years ago

Women Migraine Sufferers at Risk for Depression

– Reported, February 23, 2012

(Ivanhoe Newswire) New research suggests that women with any history of migraine are about 40 percent more likely to develop depression than women without a history of migraine.

For the study, researchers classified 36,154 women without depression who were enrolled in the Women’s Health Study and had provided information about migraine. Women were classified as either having active migraine with aura, active migraine without aura, past history of migraine (but not within the last year) or no history of migraine. Women also provided information about diagnoses of depression.

A total of 6,456 women had current or past migraine. During an average 14 years of follow-up, 3,971 of the women developed depression.

“This is one of the first large studies to examine the association between migraine and the development of depression over time,” said Tobias Kurth, MD, ScD, with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Inserm in France and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

“We hope our findings will encourage doctors to speak to their migraine patients about the risk of depression and potential ways to prevent depression.”

SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, February 2012