Homocysteine and Migraines

Brandi has suffered from severe migraine headaches and nobody had ever been able to discover the cause. During her successful pregnancy, I noticed that she had very few severe headaches. So, I started to suspect that the lack of migraines might be related to either the prenatal vitamins or blood thinners. I recently happened upon this interesting article (http://www.patrickholford.com/content.asp?id_Content=1398) on the possible connection between the MTHFR mutation and migraine headaches.

Homocysteine and Migraines

Homocysteine, you may recall from previous communications, has a profound effect on blood vessels, hence its link to heart attacks and strokes. Dr H Kowa from the Institute of Neurological Sciences Faculty of Medicine at Japan’s Tottori University, wondered whether homocysteine might have anything to do with migraines.

He recruited 74 patients who had frequent migraine headaches and 261 normal, healthy controls. After testing them for the MTHFR gene mutation, which indicates a tendency to overproduce homocysteine, he found that, compared to controls, more than twice as many of the migraine sufferers had the mutation. And sufferers who experienced ‘aura’ symptoms before a migraine (blurred vision, bright spots in their field of vision, muddled or confused thinking, extreme exhaustion, anxiety, numbness or a tingling sensation in one side of the body) were four times more likely to have
the mutation and high levels of homocysteine.

This study suggests that the tendency to migraines might be inherited in many people, due to the MTHFR gene mutation, and that high homocysteine levels might also be involved. That has yet to be proven, but if so it would suggest that a homocysteine-lowering diet and supplement program, including B2, B6, B12 and folic acid, might prove enormously helpful for migraine sufferers. In one study, those taking high-dose vitamin B2 for four months had substantially less migraines.
My recommendation is to test your homocysteine level and supplement with homocysteine lowering nutrients daily, including B2 (100mg), B6 (100mg), B12 (150mcg), folic acid (2000mcg), and TMG (3000mg).