Alcohol as a trigger of migraine attacks in people with migraine: results from a large prospective cohort study in English-speaking countries

Objective: To assess whether alcohol intake is associated with the onset of migraine attacks up to 2 days after consumption in individuals with episodic migraine (EM).Background: Although alcohol has long been suspected to be a common migraine trigger, studies have been inconclusive in proving this...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Vives Mestres, Marina, Casanova, Amparo, Puig Oriol, Xavier|||0000-0001-6525-0498, Ginebra Molins, Josep|||0000-0001-9521-9635, Rosen, Noah
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/384852
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/384852
https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/head.14428
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Mathematical statistics
Alcohol
Headache
Individual differences
Migraine
Migraine trigger
Mixed models
Estadística matemàtica--Aplicacions
Classificació AMS::62 Statistics::62P Applications
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Matemàtiques i estadística::Estadística matemàtica
Descripción
Sumario:Objective: To assess whether alcohol intake is associated with the onset of migraine attacks up to 2 days after consumption in individuals with episodic migraine (EM).Background: Although alcohol has long been suspected to be a common migraine trigger, studies have been inconclusive in proving this association.Methods: This was an observational prospective cohort study among individuals with migraine who registered to use a digital health platform for headache. Eligible indi-viduals were aged =18 years with EM who consumed alcohol and had tracked their headache symptoms and alcohol intake for =90 days. People who did not drink any alcohol were excluded. The association of alcohol intake (“Yes/No”) and of the number of alcoholic beverages in the 2 days preceding a migraine attack was assessed ac-counting for the presence of migraine on day-2 and its interaction with alcohol intake on day-2, and further adjusted for sex, age, and average weekly alcohol intake.Results: Data on 487 individuals reporting 5913 migraine attacks and a total of 40,165 diary days were included in the analysis. Presence of migraine on day- 2 and its interac-tion with alcohol intake on day- 2 were not significant and removed from the model. At the population level, alcohol intake on day- 2 was associated with a lower probability of migraine attack (OR [95% CI] = 0.75 [0.68, 0.82]; event rate 1006/4679, 21.5%), while the effect of alcohol intake on day- 1 was not significant (OR [95% CI] = 1.01 [0.91, 1.11]; event rate 1163/4679, 24.9%) after adjusting for sex, age, and average weekly alcohol intake. Similar results were obtained with the number of beverages as exposure.Conclusions: In this English-speaking cohort of individuals with EM who identified themselves as mostly low-dose alcohol consumers, there was no significant effect on the probability of a migraine attack in the 24 h following consumption, and a slightly lower likelihood of a migraine attack from 24 to 48 h following use.