Association between Oxidative Balance Score and Migraine among American Adults: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Abstract

Background Oxidative stress has been observed to be linked with migraines. The oxidative balance score (OBS) serves as a metric for evaluating the overall systemic oxidative stress status, where elevated OBS scores suggest increased exposure to antioxidants. However, the precise connection between OBS and migraines has not been reported to date. This study seeks to investigate the potential association between OBS and migraine occurrences. Methods A cohort of 7,238 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) spanning the years 1999 to 2004 was selected for this study. Migraine diagnoses were ascertained using the Patient Health Questionnaire, specifically asking participants if they had experienced a severe headache or migraine in the past three months.The Oxidative Balance Score (OBS) was determined based on the evaluation of 20 dietary and lifestyle factors. Logistic regression and restricted cubic splines (RCS) were employed to examine the association between OBS and migraines. Additionally, adjusted models were scrutinized in the analysis. Results The prevalence of migraine was 19.43%. There was a significant negative linear relationship between OBS, dietary OBS and migraine (p for nonlinear > 0.05). Compared to the lowest tertile of OBS, the adjusted ORs for the highest tertile of OBS and dietary OBS and migraine were 0.72(95% CI: 0.59 ~ 0.88), 0.70 (95% CI: 0.56 ~ 0.86) respectively, and all P for trend < 0.05. Compared to the lowest tertile of OBS, the adjusted ORs for the highest tertile of lifestyle OBS and migraine was 0.97 (95% CI:0.82 ~ 1.14), and all P for trend > 0.05. Limitations: This research was cross-sectional design, and it was not possible to deduce causality. Conclusions Diet and lifestyle might influence migraine by modulating oxidative balance. Antioxidant diets and lifestyles were important in reducing migraine and our study also provided new ideas for improving migraine.