Your migraines may be preventable….
Today's Post: Tuesday, 6-29-2009
If you get 12 migraines a month now – and 3 of them are so bad you can’t work or enjoy your life, wouldn’t it be great if you could get one or two weak ones – or none at all – most months.
Some recent information I’ve gotten suggests you may well be able to do exactly that!
And no drugs are needed either!
1. Last Thursday, Health Day online news listed many things that trigger migraines.
So, since migraines likely won’t occur at all if they are never triggered or turned on, if you consistently manage to avoid many of the things on that list, you’ll have a lot less migraines. Even better, many of those things that seem to trigger YOUR migraines are avoidable. Better yet, you even get extra health benefits from avoiding some of them!
Do the best you can with that & then turn off most of the rest of your migraines with the next methods we include today.:
2. Today, Al Sears MD’s “Doctor’s House Calls” email listed 3 supplements that EACH been found to cut the amount of migraines people get in half.
3. Separate research found that people who get regular exercise get half as many migraines. So, if by avoiding some things and taking one or more of these supplements cuts down on your migraines enough to do regular exercise, you may get very few.
4. Lastly, separate research has found that people who get migraines are at somewhat higher risk of heart disease.
The good news in that is that both migraines and heart disease apparently have some common causes and that suggests that doing things that keep the inside of your blood vessels, or endothelium, healthy, will prevent BOTH. In fact, many of the things in the previous 3 sections likely work because they have precisely this kind of protection for your blood vessels.
So that means that also doing what you can to protect your heart in other ways will tend to prevent migraines as well as heart attacks!
That gives you four separate and powerful ways to prevent migraines.
Here’s the info.
1. Here are some ways to avoid the triggers of migraines.
a) I’ve found out separately from the Health Day article that being around cigarette smoke can trigger migraines. It can be hard to quit and may be hard to avoid cigarette smoke for some people. But doing it pays off big time! Smoking also both causes heart disease AND triggers heart attacks. It also causes close to one third of ALL cancers.
So, if you smoke, quit -- get the prescriptions from your doctor that have been shown to work and help from a support group if you need it. And every time you CAN do so, avoid other people’s smoke.
You’ll not only have fewer migraines, you’ll have fewer medical bills, be in better health otherwise, and live longer!
b) Too much or too little sleep can trigger migraines. Find out how much sleep you do best on and how much you can get consistently. Then, to the maximum extent you can, go to bed and get up at the exact same time at least 5 days a week -- & all 7 if you can manage it.
Do what you can to have where you sleep, dark, cool, and quiet. Some people use earplugs. Those cut back on racket but you can still hear the alarm clock and other things you need to hear. (Also getting regular exercise will help you sleep better.)
c) Aspartame has been shown to trigger migraines and may have other even more harmful health effects. So, don’t drink any soft drinks or use artificial sweeteners. They all make you fat, tend to help cause heart disease and type 2 diabetes -- in addition to some triggering migraines. You can use some real sugar and perhaps some natural sweeteners with no or fewer calories. But you’ll have fewer migraines and be healthier if you have no artificial sweeteners. (We just did a post a few days ago on what you can drink instead of soft drinks. Many of those have no calories at all.)
d) Monosodium glutamate aka MSG is one of the food additives that trigger migraines. Since it also tends to make you fat. And some research suggests it may help cause Alzheimer’s as well, again, if you avoid MSG every way you can, you’ll not only get fewer migraines, you’ll be less fat and likely be healthier. (We did a recent post on how they found out MSG fattens you.) So, don’t buy or eat things that contain MSG and say so on their labels. And, only eat in Chinese restaurants that say they do not use it and don’t use it.
e) Missing meals can be hard to avoid.
But small meals can often be MUCH better than none. Use your creativity to use small meals you can eat on the go. Pecans and raisins in a small bag you keep in your pocket or purse can work. A single banana and a piece of cheese can work. The commercial meal replacement product Ensure isn’t too bad, just check to be sure it doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners. (I don’t remember that it did when I had to have some before a medical procedure.)
If you use this method to miss no meals totally or only one a week, you’ll clearly have way less migraines than missing five or more meals totally.
Loud noise can trigger migraines. If you can’t avoid it, use ear plugs. But when you can avoid it do so! This will not only save you getting some migraines, it may save you having to buy a hearing aid later.
f) Changes in the weather, hormonal changes, & stress are hard to avoid. But as we point out separately, people who get regular exercise handle them better and can overcome more. If you have time and can learn to do it, Tai Chi also works to relieve stress.
That’s also why the 3 supplements that seem to turn off migraines separately in the next section can be so important.
g) Drinking red wine sometimes triggers regular headaches for some people as well as triggering migraines. But it can depend on the variety and even the country of origin or batch of that particular wine. And, since there are certain chemicals that seem to cause the problem, it’s my hope that the wine industry will do more to identify those and make some or many red wines with very little or none of these nasty chemicals &/or list how much on their labels. So you can get a red wine with little or none.
So, if you drink a kind of red wine that triggers a migraine, don’t drink it again.
Also, you can drink white wine and/or do things like drink concord grape juice, take grape seed extract, &/or take resveratrol supplements to get many of the health benefits of red wine without either the red wine or the alcohol.
2. The 3 supplements that EACH turn off about half of migraines.:
(For more info from Al Sears, MD, on other topics, go to www.alsearsmd.com .)
a) Magnesium tends to protect the health of your blood vessels. Researchers found some kinds of migraines are caused by problems with blood flow and pressure in the vessels. So if you take magnesium supplements, you can help avoid those migraines. In fact, studies have shown that taking 600 mg of magnesium a day “reduces migraines by up to 41 percent.”
Taking that much magnesium (but not much more as that can cause problems) also tends to prevent high blood pressure and prevent constipation as well. You can get magnesium citrate and magnesium asporotate supplements that are most bioavailable and often come in 200 mg capsules. So taking 3 a day is easy.
b) CoQ10 – Researchers at the Head and Pain Unit at the University Hospital Zurich did a clinical trial that found that taking 300 mg of CoQ10 daily cuts migraine frequency by half.
Dr Sears points out that you need to take the CoQ10 the gel caps that contain their own oils or take CoQ10 with some kind of oil or fat -- because CoQ10 is fat-soluble. (Jarrow makes a 100 mg supplement of this kind called QAbsorb.) Taking CoQ10 with any health OK oil also works, such as extra virgin olive oil, or fatty fish, or avocados, or nuts.
CoQ10 also tends to lower high blood pressure, strengthen your heart, and keep up your energy level particularly if you are over 40. CoQ10 improves the function of your mitochondria which are your cell’s energy sources which enables it to do the other things – including prevent many migraines.
c) Riboflavin (vitamin B2) also helps keep your mitochondria able to give your cells energy. Not surprisingly a study found that taking 400 mg of riboflavin a day cut the frequency of migraines in half.
You not only can find riboflavin (vitamin B2) supplements at your local health food store, they are quite inexpensive.
So, if you find CoQ10 a bit pricey, you can take magnesium and riboflavin and prevent up to 80% of all your migraines. And you can prevent some more and get other health benefits if you can also afford to take CoQ10.
3. Separate research found that people who get regular exercise get half as many migraines. So, if by avoiding some things and taking one or more of these supplements cuts down on your migraines enough to do regular exercise, you may get very few.
Even moderate exercise flexes your blood vessels and helps to keep them healthy plus people who get regular exercise handle stress better too. They also sleep much better. So it’s no surprise regular exercise prevents migraines. It does so in all three of these ways at once.
In fact, with exercise, getting some, if only for 5 minutes each day, helps. People who have high blood pressure who exercise have lower blood pressure on the days they exercise but not always on the days they don’t exercise.
4. Since keeping your blood vessels healthy helps prevent BOTH heart disease and migraines, the other things you can do that protect your heart also will help prevent migraines.
In addition to the things listed above, you can stop eating refined grains and food made from them, eat less sugar, and eat more nonstarchy vegetables plus you can eat wild caught salmon or sardines &/or take purified fish oil supplements. That set of things lowers your dangerous triglyceride levels and your CRP inflammation.
You can eat foods such as beans, lentils, apples, unsweetened applesauce, and “Old Fashioned” oatmeal instead of “Quick” or instant; you can take niacin 300 mg to 900 mg a day, and you can take sterol supplements. Plus you can rarely eat fatty meat from grain fed animals and eat very lean meat or poultry or beef fed only grass and wild caught salmon and/or sardines instead. That set of things lowers LDL cholesterol. And doing each of those things plus getting regular exercise lowers LDL about as well as statin drugs.
Taking niacin, using extra virgin olive oil almost exclusively, drinking wine, and regular exercise, particularly strength training and interval cardio, increase your protective HDL level.
Completely avoiding trans fat and all foods that contain hydrogenated oils both will lower your triglycerides and increase your HDL.
So every one of those things will also help keep your blood vessels healthy and prevent migraines – in addition to protecting you from heart attacks and strokes.
(Avoiding cigarette smoke that also triggers migraines directly is also critically important to protect your heart and to prevent triggering heart attacks.)
Today's Post: Tuesday, 6-29-2009
If you get 12 migraines a month now – and 3 of them are so bad you can’t work or enjoy your life, wouldn’t it be great if you could get one or two weak ones – or none at all – most months.
Some recent information I’ve gotten suggests you may well be able to do exactly that!
And no drugs are needed either!
1. Last Thursday, Health Day online news listed many things that trigger migraines.
So, since migraines likely won’t occur at all if they are never triggered or turned on, if you consistently manage to avoid many of the things on that list, you’ll have a lot less migraines. Even better, many of those things that seem to trigger YOUR migraines are avoidable. Better yet, you even get extra health benefits from avoiding some of them!
Do the best you can with that & then turn off most of the rest of your migraines with the next methods we include today.:
2. Today, Al Sears MD’s “Doctor’s House Calls” email listed 3 supplements that EACH been found to cut the amount of migraines people get in half.
3. Separate research found that people who get regular exercise get half as many migraines. So, if by avoiding some things and taking one or more of these supplements cuts down on your migraines enough to do regular exercise, you may get very few.
4. Lastly, separate research has found that people who get migraines are at somewhat higher risk of heart disease.
The good news in that is that both migraines and heart disease apparently have some common causes and that suggests that doing things that keep the inside of your blood vessels, or endothelium, healthy, will prevent BOTH. In fact, many of the things in the previous 3 sections likely work because they have precisely this kind of protection for your blood vessels.
So that means that also doing what you can to protect your heart in other ways will tend to prevent migraines as well as heart attacks!
That gives you four separate and powerful ways to prevent migraines.
Here’s the info.
1. Here are some ways to avoid the triggers of migraines.
a) I’ve found out separately from the Health Day article that being around cigarette smoke can trigger migraines. It can be hard to quit and may be hard to avoid cigarette smoke for some people. But doing it pays off big time! Smoking also both causes heart disease AND triggers heart attacks. It also causes close to one third of ALL cancers.
So, if you smoke, quit -- get the prescriptions from your doctor that have been shown to work and help from a support group if you need it. And every time you CAN do so, avoid other people’s smoke.
You’ll not only have fewer migraines, you’ll have fewer medical bills, be in better health otherwise, and live longer!
b) Too much or too little sleep can trigger migraines. Find out how much sleep you do best on and how much you can get consistently. Then, to the maximum extent you can, go to bed and get up at the exact same time at least 5 days a week -- & all 7 if you can manage it.
Do what you can to have where you sleep, dark, cool, and quiet. Some people use earplugs. Those cut back on racket but you can still hear the alarm clock and other things you need to hear. (Also getting regular exercise will help you sleep better.)
c) Aspartame has been shown to trigger migraines and may have other even more harmful health effects. So, don’t drink any soft drinks or use artificial sweeteners. They all make you fat, tend to help cause heart disease and type 2 diabetes -- in addition to some triggering migraines. You can use some real sugar and perhaps some natural sweeteners with no or fewer calories. But you’ll have fewer migraines and be healthier if you have no artificial sweeteners. (We just did a post a few days ago on what you can drink instead of soft drinks. Many of those have no calories at all.)
d) Monosodium glutamate aka MSG is one of the food additives that trigger migraines. Since it also tends to make you fat. And some research suggests it may help cause Alzheimer’s as well, again, if you avoid MSG every way you can, you’ll not only get fewer migraines, you’ll be less fat and likely be healthier. (We did a recent post on how they found out MSG fattens you.) So, don’t buy or eat things that contain MSG and say so on their labels. And, only eat in Chinese restaurants that say they do not use it and don’t use it.
e) Missing meals can be hard to avoid.
But small meals can often be MUCH better than none. Use your creativity to use small meals you can eat on the go. Pecans and raisins in a small bag you keep in your pocket or purse can work. A single banana and a piece of cheese can work. The commercial meal replacement product Ensure isn’t too bad, just check to be sure it doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners. (I don’t remember that it did when I had to have some before a medical procedure.)
If you use this method to miss no meals totally or only one a week, you’ll clearly have way less migraines than missing five or more meals totally.
Loud noise can trigger migraines. If you can’t avoid it, use ear plugs. But when you can avoid it do so! This will not only save you getting some migraines, it may save you having to buy a hearing aid later.
f) Changes in the weather, hormonal changes, & stress are hard to avoid. But as we point out separately, people who get regular exercise handle them better and can overcome more. If you have time and can learn to do it, Tai Chi also works to relieve stress.
That’s also why the 3 supplements that seem to turn off migraines separately in the next section can be so important.
g) Drinking red wine sometimes triggers regular headaches for some people as well as triggering migraines. But it can depend on the variety and even the country of origin or batch of that particular wine. And, since there are certain chemicals that seem to cause the problem, it’s my hope that the wine industry will do more to identify those and make some or many red wines with very little or none of these nasty chemicals &/or list how much on their labels. So you can get a red wine with little or none.
So, if you drink a kind of red wine that triggers a migraine, don’t drink it again.
Also, you can drink white wine and/or do things like drink concord grape juice, take grape seed extract, &/or take resveratrol supplements to get many of the health benefits of red wine without either the red wine or the alcohol.
2. The 3 supplements that EACH turn off about half of migraines.:
(For more info from Al Sears, MD, on other topics, go to www.alsearsmd.com .)
a) Magnesium tends to protect the health of your blood vessels. Researchers found some kinds of migraines are caused by problems with blood flow and pressure in the vessels. So if you take magnesium supplements, you can help avoid those migraines. In fact, studies have shown that taking 600 mg of magnesium a day “reduces migraines by up to 41 percent.”
Taking that much magnesium (but not much more as that can cause problems) also tends to prevent high blood pressure and prevent constipation as well. You can get magnesium citrate and magnesium asporotate supplements that are most bioavailable and often come in 200 mg capsules. So taking 3 a day is easy.
b) CoQ10 – Researchers at the Head and Pain Unit at the University Hospital Zurich did a clinical trial that found that taking 300 mg of CoQ10 daily cuts migraine frequency by half.
Dr Sears points out that you need to take the CoQ10 the gel caps that contain their own oils or take CoQ10 with some kind of oil or fat -- because CoQ10 is fat-soluble. (Jarrow makes a 100 mg supplement of this kind called QAbsorb.) Taking CoQ10 with any health OK oil also works, such as extra virgin olive oil, or fatty fish, or avocados, or nuts.
CoQ10 also tends to lower high blood pressure, strengthen your heart, and keep up your energy level particularly if you are over 40. CoQ10 improves the function of your mitochondria which are your cell’s energy sources which enables it to do the other things – including prevent many migraines.
c) Riboflavin (vitamin B2) also helps keep your mitochondria able to give your cells energy. Not surprisingly a study found that taking 400 mg of riboflavin a day cut the frequency of migraines in half.
You not only can find riboflavin (vitamin B2) supplements at your local health food store, they are quite inexpensive.
So, if you find CoQ10 a bit pricey, you can take magnesium and riboflavin and prevent up to 80% of all your migraines. And you can prevent some more and get other health benefits if you can also afford to take CoQ10.
3. Separate research found that people who get regular exercise get half as many migraines. So, if by avoiding some things and taking one or more of these supplements cuts down on your migraines enough to do regular exercise, you may get very few.
Even moderate exercise flexes your blood vessels and helps to keep them healthy plus people who get regular exercise handle stress better too. They also sleep much better. So it’s no surprise regular exercise prevents migraines. It does so in all three of these ways at once.
In fact, with exercise, getting some, if only for 5 minutes each day, helps. People who have high blood pressure who exercise have lower blood pressure on the days they exercise but not always on the days they don’t exercise.
4. Since keeping your blood vessels healthy helps prevent BOTH heart disease and migraines, the other things you can do that protect your heart also will help prevent migraines.
In addition to the things listed above, you can stop eating refined grains and food made from them, eat less sugar, and eat more nonstarchy vegetables plus you can eat wild caught salmon or sardines &/or take purified fish oil supplements. That set of things lowers your dangerous triglyceride levels and your CRP inflammation.
You can eat foods such as beans, lentils, apples, unsweetened applesauce, and “Old Fashioned” oatmeal instead of “Quick” or instant; you can take niacin 300 mg to 900 mg a day, and you can take sterol supplements. Plus you can rarely eat fatty meat from grain fed animals and eat very lean meat or poultry or beef fed only grass and wild caught salmon and/or sardines instead. That set of things lowers LDL cholesterol. And doing each of those things plus getting regular exercise lowers LDL about as well as statin drugs.
Taking niacin, using extra virgin olive oil almost exclusively, drinking wine, and regular exercise, particularly strength training and interval cardio, increase your protective HDL level.
Completely avoiding trans fat and all foods that contain hydrogenated oils both will lower your triglycerides and increase your HDL.
So every one of those things will also help keep your blood vessels healthy and prevent migraines – in addition to protecting you from heart attacks and strokes.
(Avoiding cigarette smoke that also triggers migraines directly is also critically important to protect your heart and to prevent triggering heart attacks.)
Labels: avoid migraines, escape migraines, possible cure for migraines, prevent heart attacks, prevent migraines, protect your heart
posted by David at 2:18 PM
1 Comments:
Even more supplements that cut the frequency of migraines.:
Since I did this post I got an email that had a study that found that taking the 3 B vitamins that lower homocysteine ALSO helps reduce the frequency of migraines in half!
500 to 1,000 mcg of B12, ideally the methyl cobalamin form;
up to a total of 75 to 100 mg a day of B6 (but not much more as that's sometimes harmful);
And, 2,000 iu or more of folic acid daily plus eating as many of the foods such as greens and oranges that contain the natural version of folic acid as possible -- will do the job.
These 3 B vitamins, in part by lowering homocysteine, also help keep your blood vessels healthy, prevent heart disease, AND help prevent all kinds of senility.
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