Migraine Sufferers: Go Easy on the Booze

October 27, 2009

Article

Migraine sufferers got some more bad news on Monday, when the results of a study determined that "sufferers are also more prone to splitting head pain after drinking too much."

Researchers from the Jefferson Headache Center "repeatedly stimulated headaches in rats' brains by injecting the outer membrane of the brain with an inflammatory mixture." One group of rats were given the equivalent of two shots of liquor, and another group, which had not been injected with the inflammatory mixture, were given the same. The evaluation that followed revealed that "the rats which were injected with the headache-inducing mixture and then given alcohol initially felt little pain."

Michael Oshinsky, assistant professor of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University and a member of the Jefferson Headache Center team, stated that "Our results suggest that dehydration or impurities in alcohol are not responsible for hangover headache. Since these rats were sufficiently hydrated and the alcohol they received contained no impurities, the alcohol itself or a metabolite must be causing the hangover-like headache."

Research from this study was presented at Neuroscience 2009, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in Chicago earlier this week.

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