The association between dietary acid load and the migraine odds

Abstract

Background: According to previous evidence, it has been shown that high acidic load in human body could affect inflammatory factors and the nitric oxide pathway. On the other hand, these factors are thought to play a role in initiation of migraine attacks. Therefore, we aimed to explore the association between dietary acid load and the odds of migraine in a case-control study.Methods: The migraine group (n=514, diagnosed according to the ICHDIII criteria) was recruited from a tertiary headache clinic. The controls consisted of 582 sex-matched healthy volunteers who were randomly selected from the general population. For dietary intake assessments, we used a validated 168-item semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Using three different measures, such as potential renal acid load (PRAL), net endogenous acid production (NEAP), and protein /potassium ratio for estimation of the dietary acid load.Results: According to multivariable logistic regression analysis, in comparison with the lowest tertile, highest tertile of dietary acid load measures including PRAL (OR=7.208, 95% CI 3.33– 15.55), NEAP (OR=4.108, 95% CI 1.924– 8.774), protein/potassium ratio (OR=4.127, 95% CI 1.933– 8.814) were shown to significantly increase odds of migraine (P for trend= <0.001).Conclusions: In this study, it was found that high dietary acid load may be associated with higher odds of migraine. Consequently, restricting dietary acid load could be beneficial in reducing the odds of developing migraine in susceptible subjects.