A migraine is severe, recurrent headache, usually affecting only one side of the head, marked by sharp pain and, often, nausea. If you’ve ever had a migraine, you know that it can be a debilitating experience. Such headaches can last a few moments, a couple of hours, or several days. Regardless of how long a migraine lasts, it always feels like an eternity when you are having one.
What causes migraines?
Renowned endocrinologist, Diana Schwarzbein. M.D, author of The Schwarzbein Principle, believes that many headaches are caused by poor nutrition, stress, or overuse of stimulants. "These types of headaches stem from increases in the chemicals that cause pain." Schwarzbein also asserts that "low serotonin levels are responsible for the overproduction of these chemicals, which cause pain through inflammation, vasodilation and smooth muscle contraction." She has seen proper nutrition and hormone balancing eliminate these types of headaches by providing the body with the raw materials it needs to function at its best and rebalance serotonin.
Dr. Barry Sears, author of the bestselling book, The Zone, explains, "The pain of a headache can come either from constriction of the blood vessels to the brain, or simply from the excess release of the body’s‘pain chemicals’ — bad eicosanoids. Sometimes both events occur simultaneously." (Eicosanoids are hormone like substances which control pain and inflammation, vasoconstriction and vasodilation of arteries, among other things.)
Genetic error or acquired imbalance?
Many doctors believe — and tell their patients — that migraines and other degenerative disorders are genetic. Doctors who hand out such explanations overlook the fact that diet and lifestyle habits and coping skills also run in families and that these are most often at the root of our health problems.
"Degenerative diseases are not genetic but acquired," believes Schwarzbein. "Because the systems of the body are interconnected and because one imbalance creates another imbalance, poor eating and lifestyle habits, not genetics, cause degenerative disease," he asserts.
The obvious?
Balanced nutrition really is the key to good health, but many of us don’t really know what balanced nutrition would mean in their own lives. Many of the foods (mainly artificial foods) that modern people consume interfere with the proper functioning of our bodies. There are also many nourishing foods that we may fail to eat, or neglect to eat enough of.
"Saccharin, margarine, other invented substances, refined and processed foods, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and aspartame are damaging to the human physiology," contends Schwatzbein. "These substances are toxins; they raise insulin levels, or imbalance other hormones, and they literally poison our bodies," explains Schwarzbein.
In fact, junk food gets in the way of the body’s functioning, just as other junk gets in the way of other kinds of functioning. When we take in substances that don’t provide the nourishment we need, we cause damage on a cellular level. Not only that, we deprive ourselves of the foods and nutrients that are the building blocks for health. Since we cannot see the damage going on inside, we may not realize that our bodies are breaking down until our symptoms speak so loudly that we cannot ignore them: we have a health crisis, perhaps in the form of a migraine.
Three alarm fire
A migraine headache is like an alarm (a smoke detector) going off: your body is trying to alert you of an impending emergency. The more often the alarm goes off, and the louder the noise, the more urgent the situation.
Unfortunately, the common response when the alarm goes off — in this case, the headache you cannot ignore — is to take an aspirin (or two, or three or four) or a prescription pain killer or calcium channel blocker. While this temporarily shuts off the headache — just as removing the battery would quiet a smoke detector — it does nothing to address the source of the smoke to which the alarm is responding. In fact, stopgap medications may keep us from seeing the need to make radical changes in diet, lifestyle, and/or coping skills.
Trying to cut butter with a chain saw
Sears likens taking aspirin to using a medicinal sledgehammer. Here’s why: When you take an aspirin, a prescription anti-inflammatory drug, or other pain killer, you knock out the pain and the inflammatory prostaglandins, but in the process you shut down production of all of the (beneficial) prostaglandins in the body. In the short run this may be desirable, but over the long-haul, this approach can result in significant, even life-threatening problems.
When the body is under the influence of pain killers, "platelets don’t clump when they’re supposed to (which can give rise to internal bleeding), bicarbonate in the stomach isn’t secreted (ulcers can develop), and gastrointestinal (GI) tract bleeding can take place. Even worse, longterm use of aspirin can eventually depress the immune system" explains Dr. Sears.
Many of the medications used to treat headaches — such as ergotamine, opiate analgesics, and even mild analgesics such as aspirin — are now known to "actually cause the development of chronic headaches," says Dr. Melvin R. Werbach, in the May 1998 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients. These drugs deplete endorphins in the central nervous system and close down regulation of endorphin receptor sites. So they actually compound the problem.
Healthy solutions
We need a solution that addresses the cause of the headaches (the hormone or prostaglandin imbalance) by rectifying deficiencies at the cellular level. Drugs don’t do this.
Research has shown that migraine headaches respond to magnesium supplementation, omega-3 fish oil supplementation, and vitamin B6 supplementation, used singly or in combination. Because nutrients work in unison, a deficiency of one or more nutrient can affect our utilization of other nutrients. For example, vitamin B6 and magnesium are needed for the metabolism of essential fatty acids, and essential fatty acids are required for the production of prostaglandins that maintain normal tone in the blood vessels. If we are missing just one crucial ingredient, this chain of events breaks down, and dis-ease and discomfort can arise. Headaches are just one sign of such an imbalance.
One reason that these nutrients have been used so successfully in the treatment of migraines is that they address a common deficiency: many people fail to get enough of them from their daily diets. Most modern people eat far too many refined and processed carbohydrates and oils, chemicals, preservatives, additives, and stimulants, and far too few fresh vegetables, nuts, seeds, and too little fish. As a result, they end up with prostaglandin and eicosanoid imbalances, which upset the basic body chemistry. In some cases, these hormonal imbalances lead to vasoconstriction (constricted arteries) in the brain and excruciating, throbbing headaches.
Magnesium
Magnesium supplementation has proven to be both safe and effective under double-blind conditions for migraine headaches, including premenstrual migraines. (Br Med J 287:580-3, 1983.). "Intravenous magnesium often aborts a migraine within a few minutes" according to research reported in the journal Clinical Science (89;633-6, 1995). Although injections provide the most rapid relief from magnesium deficiency, oral magnesium — whether from food, supplements, or a combination — can provide long term headache prevention, particularly for the majority of Americans who suffer from magnesium deficiciency.
According the Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, authors of The Protein Power LifePlan, many Americans are deficient in magnesium because of (a) they don’t eat enough vegetables; (b) they do not absorb much magnesium from food; (c) they are ina love affair with high complex carb, low-fat diets; (d) they avoid of foods rich in fat; (d) widespread depletion of crop lands has left the foods themselves short on magnesium; and (e) softening of our water supply has robbed us of a primary mineral source.
| Decline in magnesium content of foods 1914-1992 (per 100 grams) | |||
| 1914 | 1948 | 1992 | |
| Cabbage | 66 mg | 30 mg | 15 mg |
| Spinach | 122 mg | 125 mg | 79 mg |
| Leaf lettuce | 112 mg | 31 mg | 9 mg |
| Note: Similar declines were observed for calcium and iron over the same period. Paul Bergner, The Healing Power of Minerals, 1997 | |||
The majority of Americans don’t eat enough magnesium rich foods. To make matters worse, our ability to absorb magnesium from foods declines as we age. "Kids absorb only about 25 to 35 percent of the dietary magnesium they take in" say the Eadeses, and "As we age, our ability to absorb magnesium falls to under 15 percent." Further, the low-fat craze has caused many people to greatly reduce or even eliminate oil-rich foods such as nuts and seeds, which happen to be excellent sources of magnesium.
The balance of macro-nutrients in our diet also has a strong bearing on our magnesium status. Diets rich in sugar as well as those high in carbohydrates and very low in fat and protein can lead to chronically high insulin levels. "A number of studies have demonstrated that in the face of elevated insulin — which 75 percent of Americans may have to one degree or another — the kidneys waste magnesium, leading to an increased loss of magnesium in the urine of more than 30 percent," says the Eadeses.
Another problem is improper farming practices, which have allowed our topsoils to become depleted over the past century. As a result, the mineral content of foods, particularly vegetables, has dropped precipitously. (This is another reason to seek out and consume as much organic produce as your budget will permit.)
"The most crucial magnesium loss in our modern diet has come not from our food, but from our water," say the Eadeses. "Certainly for early humans and throughout most of human history, the single most available source of magnesium has been drinking water." The "hard" water that quenched the thirst of our ancestors is unfashionable. More municipalities, towns and cities across the nation are going to great lengths to treat their water with softening agents (which remove many of the hard minerals) and more people are turning to bottled and commercially softened (reverse osmosis and distilled) water — which is devoid of life sustaining minerals. Sadly, few of the so-called "mineral" waters on the market contain any significant amount of magnesium.
Correcting a magnesium deficiency can be as simple as eating more vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fish; drinking hard (mineral rich) water; and eating a diet designed reduce insulin levels, thereby allowing the body to hold onto and utilize more of the magnesium you do ingest. You also can remineralize your water, using concentrated liquid mineral drops found in natural foods stores. (This is particularly important if you are drinking water treated by reverse osmosis or distillation.) Many find the taste of remineralized water quite satisfying.
Best sources of magnesium: mineral-rich water, dark leafy green vegetables (kale, collards, beet and turnip greens, broccoli, etc.), nuts (especially cashews, peanuts, and almond), sesame and sunflower seeds, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, peaches, figs, fish (particularly sole, cod, flounder, halibut, salmon, and shrimp), avocados, brewer’s yeast, beans (especially navy, garbanzo, kidney, black eyed peas), and brown rice.
Omega-3 fish oils
Supplementation with fish oil, a source of EPA and DHA omega-3 essential fatty acids, has been shown to be effective in the treatment and prevention of migraine headaches at dosages of about four grams per day. Fish oil appears to normalize vascular motor response, relaxing smooth muscles and arteries that feed the brain. Fish oil also reduces platelet aggregation and reduces the release of platelet serotonin, say researchers. [Am J Clin Nutr 34 (1); 2364-6, 1981.]
EPA and DHA are classified as essential fatty acids because our bodies cannot manufacture them, so we must get these from our diets. These essential fatty acids (EFAs) are the building blocks for special hormones in our bodies called eicosanoids and prostaglandins. When we don’t get enough of the right fats and oils and we ingest too many of the wrong kinds of fats and oils our hormonal balance goes awry. Migraine headaches are just one in a long list of problems that can result from a fatty acid imbalance.
The fats and oils that do the most damage to our bodies include refined and processed oils (heated at high temperatures, extracted with solvents, bleaches and degumming agents, then packaged in clear plastic or glass bottles) and overheated oils, such as those used for deep frying. Other culprits include hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats, which are used in a plethora of packaged and processed foods, including commercial cookies, cakes, pastries, muffins, breads, crackers, baking mixes, supermarket granolas, pie crusts, flavored popcorn, breaded and/or deep fried foods, frozen desserts, many cold cereals, oil roasted peanuts, as well as shortening and margarine.
Another problem is the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids that most of us now consume. Available evidence, documented in The Paleolithic Prescription by S. Boyd Eaton, M.D, (out of print) suggests that humans evolved on a diet rich in omega-3 essential fatty acids. Diets of less industrialized, more primitive hunter-gatherers studied within the past century contain much higher amount of omega 3-oils and significantly lower intakes of omega-6 oils than modern diets.
In addition, our intake of seafoods and wild game (rich in EPA and DHA) has plummeted over the past 200 years. "Today’s livestock is often fed high omega-6 grains instead of range grasses rich in omega-3, and since animals also need omega-3s to make DHA, this results in animal products containing little, if any, DHA for consumers. Dairy and poultry products that formerly supplied DHA no longer do," says Marcia Zimmerman, C.N., author of The ADD Solution: A Drug Free 30 Day Plan. (Holt/Owl Books, 1999.) Even salmon, normally a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, contain very little of these EFAs if the fish are farm raised and fed grains rather than their natural food: phytoplankton.
The result? Whereas hunter-gatherer diets typically supplied a 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, the ratio is estimated to be 20:1 or 30:1 in favor of omega-6 fatty acids for modern people.
Best sources of EPA and DHA: wild (not farmed) oily deep ocean fish (salmon, halibut, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, trout, cod liver, etc.), salmon oil, cod liver oil, fish oil capsules. Note: Although flax oil contains omega-3 fatty acids it does not contain EPA or DHA. According to recent research, the human body converts little if any ALA into EPA or DHA. In the best case scenario, if and when ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) in flax oil is converted into EPA, the conversion rate is so low that and one must consume 10 grams of ALA to yield 1 gram of EPA (or 50 grams of ALA to yield a mere 5 grams of EPA).
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B-6 may also be helpful in treating headaches. It "should always be included when magnesium supplements are taken as it increases cell membrane transfer and utilization of magnesium," says Dr. Melvyn R. Werbach in Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, May 1998.
Why is B-6 so important? Vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) is a precursor to a coenzyme that is required for the synthesis of amino acids, neurotransmitters, nucleic acid, and lecithin. It can increase brain serotonin also plays an important role in the immune system and steroid hormone activity.
What causes vitamin B6 deficiencies? Most Americans (97 percent, according to surveys over the past decade) fail to consume even the minimum recommended five USDA servings of produce per day. When they do eat vegetables and fruits, many people consume overcooked or canned produce (which has suffered enormous nutrient losses) or they simply fail to choose the most vitamin-rich vegetables and fruits. Another problem is that animal products, particularly meats, have lost some favor. As a result, many people limit or avoid eating them, but do not replace them with other foods rich in B-6.
The best sources of Vitamin B-6 include beef and poultry liver, dessicated liver powder, fresh meats (beef, pork, lamb, wild game, etc.), poultry, fish (especially trout, tuna, salmon), brewer’s yeast, cantaloupe, watermelon, potatoes, avocado, sunflower seeds, dark green leafy and flowering vegetables (e.g., broccoli, bok choy, spinach, turnip greens), and cauliflower. Researchers have found that the B6 in whole grains and other plant foods is not as bioavailable as B6 from animal sources, so if you get your B6 from plants, you need to eat more of them.
Although whole grains are often touted as "health" foods they do not deliver all that we have been told. Although raw whole grains are good sources of B-complex vitamins, namely thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), and pyridoxine (B6), they lose much of their power through processing. Since B1, B3, B5, and B6 are all destroyed by heat, and all whole grains must be extensively heated to be made edible, when whole grains are made edible they may not always be good sources of these vitamins.
An end in sight?
No one yet knows the exact causes of migraines, but the results that some ex-sufferers have achieved through diet deserve some serious consideration. It can’t hurt to take an in-depth look at your diet and then make some changes. Start with the glaring excesses and omissions first. See if you feel better. If you do, then give yourself permission to continue. Eventually, both your diet and your life will exhibit that elusive virtue known as balance.
Rachel Albert-Matesz is a Healthy Cooking Coach, cooking instructor, water filtration professional, and freelance nutrition journalist. She currently lives in Toledo, Ohio.