Having a Migraine shoots up future risk of dementia

A recent study found that migraine is associated with an increased risk of subsequent dementia. The study was published in The Journal of Headache and Pain.

Migraine is a common primary headache disorder with focal neurological symptoms and episodic disabling headaches. There are uncertain results on the association between migraine and subsequent dementia. Hence researchers from Korea conducted a study to evaluate whether patients with migraine have an increased risk of dementia compared to individuals without migraine.

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Data was collected from the 2002–2019 Korean National Health Insurance Health Screening Cohort. Non-migraine controls were selected using a 1:1 risk-set matching with a time-dependent propensity score. The main outcome was the development of all-cause dementia, and the secondary outcome was the development of each cause of dementia like Alzheimer's, vascular, mixed or other specified, and unspecified dementia. The incidence rate of dementia was calculated using Poisson regression, and the association between migraine and dementia was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression.

Results

• Among 88,390 participants, 66.1% were female, and the mean baseline age was 55.3 ± 9.4 years.
• During the study period, dementia cases were identified in 4,800 of the 44,195 patients with migraine and 3,757 of the 44,915 matched controls.
• The incidence rate of dementia was 139.6 and 107.7 cases per 10,000 person-years in patients with migraine and matched controls, respectively.
• Patients with migraine had a 1.30, 1.29, 1.35, 1.36-, and 1.30-times higher risk of developing all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's dementia, vascular dementia, mixed or other specified dementias, and unspecified dementia than their matched controls, respectively.

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Though further research is needed to further establish the results, the present study has shown an association between migraine and increased risk of subsequent dementia.

Further reading:

Hurh, K., Jeong, S.H., Kim, S.H. et al. Increased risk of all-cause, Alzheimer's, and vascular dementia in adults with migraine in Korea: a population-based cohort study. J Headache Pain 23, 108 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-022-01484-y