A study out this week may have uncovered something else that can set off people’s painful migraines: air pollution.
Researchers tracked the health of regular migraine sufferers. The more air pollution in an area, the more people would visit doctors for their head-splitting pain. The study suggests pollution can be an important, if complex, environmental migraine trigger, the researchers say.
“These findings support a layered model of migraine activity, in which environmental exposures act both as acute triggers and as modulators of susceptibility over time,” they wrote in their paper, published Wednesday in the journal Neurology.
Pollution and pain
Migraines are a severe type of headache, characterized by intense throbbing or pulsating pain, typically on one side of the head. It can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and a sensitivity to light. Some people also develop visual or sensory symptoms preceding a migraine, known as an aura.
Though anyone can get the occasional migraine, some people will experience recurrent or long-lasting episodes. And these flare-ups are often linked to potential outside triggers, including changes in the weather or environment.
Hoping to get a better grasp on these triggers, the researchers looked at data from the Negev Migraine Cohort, an earlier study that followed adults who were diagnosed with migraines in Southern Israel. They focused on roughly 7,000 migraine patients residing in the city of Be’er Sheva, tracking how often these patients sought emergency care for their episodes, as well as the amount of prescriptions they received for triptans, a common class of migraine drug. The authors cross-referenced this information with ambient air pollution and meteorological data of Be’er Sheva.
Days with higher levels of nitrogen dioxide, a common air pollutant produced by cars and power plants, were associated with more emergency migraine visits for people living in the affected areas, the researchers found. After adjusting for other factors, high nitrogen dioxide days were linked to a 41% greater risk of needing emergency care. The researchers also found that the more residents were exposed to either nitrogen dioxide or fine-particle air pollution over time, the more triptan prescriptions they tended to receive, indicating their migraines had generally worsened.
What this means for preventing migraines
The findings suggest that pollution plays a complex role in migraines, the researchers say.
Cumulative exposure to air pollution might make people more vulnerable to getting a migraine episode, while short term bursts of pollution can immediately spike the risk of an especially severe bout. At the same time, weather and climate seem to further affect the influence of pollution. Cold and humid days might lessen the effects of fine air pollution, for instance, while hot and dry days could worsen the effects of nitrogen dioxide.
In recent years, there have been more effective treatments for migraines developed, and even drugs like GLP-1s might unexpectedly have their own benefits. But given the overall trends in climate, our warming environments could make migraines more of a problem in the years to come, the researchers warn. So it’s important to be aware of these triggers now, in order to potentially mitigate them.
“As climate change intensifies the frequency of heatwaves, dust storms, and pollution episodes, integrating environmental risk into precision neurology will be essential for patient-centered care,” the authors wrote.
