Diet and nutraceutical interventions for headache management: A review of the evidence

Abstract

Background The use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) is common among patients with primary headaches. In parallel, CAM research is growing. Diet interventions comprise another category of non-pharmacologic treatment for primary headache that is of increasing clinical and research interest. Methods A literature search was carried out to identify studies on the efficacy of diet and nutraceutical interviews for primary headache in the pediatric and adult populations. MEDLINE, Embase and EBM Reviews-Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched to identify studies. Results There is a growing body of literature on the potential use of CAM and diet interventions for primary headache disorders. This review identified literature on the use of a variety of diet and nutraceutical interventions for headache. Most of the studies assessed the efficacy of these interventions for migraine, though some explored their role in tension-type headache and cluster headache. The quality of the evidence in this area is generally poor. Conclusions CAM is becoming more commonplace in the headache world. Several interventions show promise, but caution needs to be exercised in using these agents given limited safety and efficacy data. In addition, interest in exploring diet interventions in the treatment of primary headaches is emerging. Further research into the efficacy of nutraceutical and diet interventions is warranted.

The cost and the value of treatment of medication overuse headache in Italy: a longitudinal study based on patient‐derived data

“…With regard to the cost for acute medications, in addition to the higher cost herein reported, our data could be used to define an average cost per dose for each of the three main categories of overused drugs: analgesics/non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (around €0.40), triptans (around €6) and opioids (around €0.55). Finally, our results point out the relevance of direct non-medical costs, which received no attention in the evaluation of the cost of headache disorders [6,18,19], and of non-pharmacological treatment, which is increasingly used in the treatment of headache disorders [20][21][22].…”

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