Friday, November 7, 2008

Grateful for migraines

Never thought I'd say this, but if it's true, I'm grateful for headaches where I usually want to rip out my eyeballs.
Migraine sufferers who likely have no kind words about the condition may take comfort in news that women who get the extra-strength headaches have a 30-percent lower breast cancer risk, according to a new US study.

"We found that, overall, women who had a history of migraines had a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not have a history of such headaches," said Christopher Li, a breast-cancer epidemiologist and associate member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division in Seattle, Washington.

While the biological mechanism behind the association between migraines and breast cancer is not entirely understood Li and colleagues suspect that it has to do with hormone fluctuations.

"Migraines seem to have a hormonal component in that they occur more frequently in women than in men, and some of their known triggers are associated with hormones," Li said.
I'll endure them for now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't had any hormones for 15 years...since I was 36. Yet I still have chronic migraines. Go figure. I still have breasts though.

Anonymous said...

There is no way I would ever be grateful migraines even if they lessened my chances of breast cancer. Migraines can be completely and totally debilitating, and I know because I had them for years. Fortunately, I resolved them with chiropractic care. If you're intersted in some other tips to eliminate migraines read I used to suffer migraines (auras, vomiting) two or three days a week. Fortunately, chiropractic care eventually resolved them and I rarely get one anymore. If you're interested in some other migraine relief tips you can read http://www.newrinkles.com/index.php/archive/migraines-causes-and-cures/