The results obtained are in accord with the prevailing opinion that there is a relationship between migraine and female sex hormones, and suggest that women with nonmigraine headache are also susceptible to hormonal fluctuations.
SummaryThe freely diffusible gaseous compound nitric oxide (NO) has been shown to be an important messenger in many organ systems throughout the body, and particularly in the central nervous system (CNS). The importance of NO as an intermediary in cell communication in the brain is highlighted by the fact that the excitatory amino acid glutamate, the most abundant CNS neurotransmitter, is an initiator of the reaction that forms NO. Because of its numerous physiological and pathophysiological roles, the impact of NO on clinical medicine is developing. NO can act as a "double-edged sword" and it has been demonstrated that clarification of the dual effect of NO might have implications for clinical medicine, and could lead to the emergence of therapeutic opportunities. Accordingly, NO was proclaimed "Mole cule of the Year" in 1992 by the journal Science, while discovery of the pathways and roles of NO was acknowledged with the Nobel Prize in 1998. Additionally, the ubiquity of NO in the CNS implies that drugs designed to modify the biological activity of NO may have distinct effects. Thus, further clinical applications of NO, of its analogs or of newly developed NOS inhibitors are forthcoming. The therapeutic challenge would be to succeed in manipulating the NO pathways selectively.
The results of the present study are in line with literature showing a high frequency of positive family history for migraine among migraineurs. They also suggest that subjects with a positive family history have a lower "migrainous threshold" for the development of migraine and that environmental factors are more important for the occurrence of migraine in subjects without a positive family history. Accordingly, the conclusions of this study are limited to reproductive aged women.
We performed a prevalence study to compare some lifestyle
habits between subjects with migraine and those with nonmigraine
primary headaches. We surveyed female students in randomly
selected classes of the School of Medicine and the School of
Pharmacy, Belgrade University. Among all observed students (1943
subjects), 245 had migraine and 1053 had non-migraine primary
headache. According to multivariate logistic regression
analysis, the following factors were associated with migraine:
irregular eating (odds ratio (OR)=1.99; 95% confidence interval
(95% CI), 1.69 to 2.34;
p
<0.01), sleep duration shorter than
usual (OR=1.18; 95% CI 1.00 to 1.38;
p
=0.0449) and smoking >10 cigarettes
per day (OR=1.18; 95% CI=1.00 to 1.39;
p
=0.0433). The results of the present
study are in line with some other investigations suggesting that
some lifestyle habits probably play a role as migraine
precipitants.
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