Researchers link hot weather with increased headaches for people with migraines

New Delhi, June 15: Scientists have found a link between increased headaches and hot temperatures for individuals with migraines, saying that as temperatures rise, so do chances for migraine attacks.

Weather change is one of the most common trigger factors for migraine, said Vincent Martin, director of the Headache and Facial Pain Center at the US-based University of Cincinnati. The study looked at the use of Fremanezumab drug and whether it could prevent headaches caused by high temperatures.

Fremanezumab is administered by injection under the skin and is part of a set of monoclonal antibodies that have hit the market in the past six years to treat migraine in patients. Researchers cross referenced 71,030 daily diary records of 660 migraine patients with regional weather data and found that for every temperature increase of 0.12 degrees Celsius, there was a 6 per cent increase in the occurrence of any headache.

However, during the periods of Fremanezumab treatment, the association completely disappeared. "This study is the first to suggest that migraine specific therapies that block Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) may treat weather associated headaches," said Fred Cohen, a study co-author and assistant professor of medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

If the results are confirmed in future studies, the drug therapy has the potential to help many people with weather triggered migraine. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, believed that weather and medicine were intimately linked.

"A couple thousand of years later, we are proving that weather matters in human health," said Al Peterlin, who retired as chief meteorologist at the US Department of Agriculture and co-author of the study.

The findings from the study were set to be presented at the American Headache Society's 66th annual scientific meeting in San Diego, California, over the weekend.