Food Allergies May Be Cause of Unexplained Migraines

Kirk Bernard | Aug 08, 2011 | for people who suffer occasional migraine headaches that seem to have no trigger, one potential cause may be an unknown food allergy.

One Mayo Clinic researcher and one of the institute’s neurologists said in a news site, that some migraine sufferers might be experiencing symptoms from a mild, undiagnosed food allergy. He noted that more research needed to be done in the area of the link between migraines and food allergies. Pointing to a recent study published in the journal Cephalalgia, he explains that a migraine headache may be a immunological response.

The study involved testing migraine sufferers for IgG antibodies against 266 different foods. If the antibodies were present, it meant the person had allergy to that particular food. Study participants were first put on a diet rich in foods that they were allergic to then placed on a diet that eliminated those foods. The researches compared frequency and severity of headaches between the two diets and found that the number of attacks and the number of days with a headache was lowered on the elimination diet.

The researcher suggested that people suffering from unexplained migraines may want to get tested for food allergies that either were previously undiagnosed or that aren’t so severe that they cause other symptoms or forms of illness.