Migraines and breast cancer link

Migraine headaches and breast cancer

According to a new study from the journal of cancer epidemiology, biomarkers and prevention, women who suffer migraine headaches are less likely to develop breast cancer than other women.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women; over 465,000 women die annually worldwide. So I guess for those of you who are unfortunate enough to suffer from migraine headaches, here is some good news.

Dr Christopher Li of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that women who suffer from migraine headaches had a 30 % lower risk of breast cancer. The reduction in risk was for the most common types of breast cancers — those driven by hormones, such as estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer, which is fueled by estrogen, and progesterone-receptor positive breast cancer, which is fueled by progesterone.

They are not exactly sure why this link exists between migraines and breast cancer but they think it’s due to hormones. That is, women who have higher levels of estrogen in their blood stream also have higher levels of breast cancer. Also, migraines are quite often triggered by low levels of estrogen in the blood stream e.g. during a woman’s menstrual cycle.
They think that perhaps the women that suffer from migraines have a lower base level of estrogen which protects them against breast cancer.

The study involved 3412 post menopausal women in and around Seattle. Of those, 1938 had been diagnosed with breast cancer and 1474 of the women had had no history of breast cancer. The women were asked if they suffered from migraine headaches.

In this research study, Li and colleagues analyzed data from two studies of 3,412 post-menopausal women in the Seattle area, 1,938 of whom had been diagnosed with breast cancer and 1,474 of whom had no history of breast cancer. Women in the study provided information on their migraine history.

They found women who had reported a clinical diagnosis of migraine had a 30 percent reduced risk of developing hormonally sensitive breast cancers.

“Migraines are typically most severe among pre-menopausal women,” Li said. “This study was all post-menopausal women.”

Li states that this finding suggests the protective effect seen in women who get migraines may have a lasting effect at reducing breast cancer risk.

“While these results need to be interpreted with caution, they point to a possible new factor that may be related to breast-cancer risk,” Li said in a statement.