New ways to stop migraines....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 9-4-2012

It’s important to turn off migraines by removing many of their causes for three reasons.

a) Having migraines can make it much harder to function and have a good life than it should be.  So, since there are effective ways to stop getting them, it’s worth trying some to find those that work for you.

b)  Taking the different drugs to mask the symptoms of a migraine is not an extremely effective strategy.  And, the drugs themselves have side effects as most drugs tend to do

c)  Having migraines is associated with an increased risk of heart disease.  So turning them off is not just extremely desirable for a decent life, it will also protect your heart.

The best news is that we now know enough ways to turn down or prevent migraines that work for many people that if you try them, you’ll likely find some that work for you.

In fact, some of these strategies by themselves work for a majority of people who use them. 

Even better, many of these strategies have added health benefits.

1.  Here’s some of the better known strategies we’ve already posted on.

a)  Regular exercise.  In many people who have migraines and do no exercise, gradually beginning and continuing even modest regular exercise most days of every week, will make migraines far less frequent.  In some people, they stop happening at all.  (Regular exercise also is heart protective directly.)

b)  Taking extra vitamin B2 at 100 mg to 500 mg a day has completely turned off migraines for many people.  (Note that even lower doses of B2 in B complex vitamins turn your urine extra yellow.  This is not harmful and is a normal effect to expect if you do try this one.)

c)  Taking a good B complex supplement helps your body use extra B2 if you take it and taking a good B Complex supplement by itself has cut the frequency of migraines directly in some people.  (I think that Solgar’s B Complex plus C Stress Formula has the best balance in its amounts of different B vitamins and I take that one.)

d)  Taking 400 to 800 mg a day of magnesium as long as you don’t already get that much or more from a laxative such as Milk of Magnesia – cut back on the supplements if you take the laxative -- helps support many other brain and nerve functions also.  Magnesium is also low in many people today and taking extra has other health benefits including helping to prevent or lower high blood pressure.  In fact that effect of normalizing blood pressure may be part of why taking magnesium cuts the frequency for migraines for many people.

e)  Taking the herb butterbur has also cut the frequency of migraines for many people.

Doing the first 4 things first makes sense to me.  Then if you need more effect, try the herbal supplement butterbur after that.  That’s because the first 4 things each have other health benefits and may do the job without adding more steps.

But there are several more new categories of things you can do also!

Dr Russell Blaylock occasionally has advanced health information in his emails.

He did recently an email on stopping migraines.

2.  Taking CoQ10, or even better the ubiquinol form of CoQ10, was tested to help slash the frequency of migraines.

Since younger people than 40 are less likely to be deficient in it, taking it may work best for people over 40.  But he reports it working well enough it might be worth trying even for people under 40.

In his email he had this:

“In one interesting trial, 32 people with episodic migraine, with and without aura, were treated with 150 mg of CoQ10. An incredible 61.3 percent of the patients had a greater than 50 percent reduction in the number of days with a migraine headache.”

To try this, try taking 25 or 50 mg at breakfast and lunch of ubiquinol.  That gives you the equivalent of taking 100 or 200 mg of CoQ10 at each meal or 200 to 400 mg of CoQ10 total.  And, it also stays in your bloodstream twice as long too. 

That suggests to me that you might get even more migraine fighting effect by doing so than taking the CoQ10.

(Ubiquinol is the form of CoQ10 your body changes CoQ10 into before using it.  So research has found that taking directly it in the ubiquinol form your body actually uses is the much more effective way to go.)

I was impressed with this study.  And if I got migraines, I’d try the ubiquinol in what I did first. 

As it happens, I take more ubiquinol than that now for its blood pressure and antiaging effects.  So, for me, it may help prevent me from getting migraines in the first place.

3.  Dr Blaylock also said this:  “Several studies have shown that inflammation plays a major role in migraine headaches.”

That’s huge.  It’s dramatically important to know.

Preventing high chronic inflammation also helps prevent heart and vascular or blood vessel, disease.  And it also helps prevent some cancers!

Even better, it’s quite doable! 

(That’s so although it’s easier for some people than others to do part of what works to turn down high chronic inflammation.)

a) Dr Blaylock lists these supplements as both helping stop this kind of inflammation AND migraines.

DHA, an omega 3 oil from fish or algae that has other brain positive effects in addition to helping stop migraines.  It does help lower inflammation well.

Milk thistle, an herbal supplement with proven healing properties for your liver he also listed.

Quercetin is a plant nutrient in many beneficial plants including organic & unwaxed apple peels and onions.  Dr Blaylock finds it helps prevent migraines and lists it in his group of supplements that turn down inflammation.

He also lists curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric that gives curries their yellow color.

He suggests taking curcumin twice a day to help stop inflammation and migraine headaches.

Turmeric is a super-supplement! 

Turmeric DOES strongly fight excess inflammation.  But it does so much more that one researcher from Stanford after reading the research now eats turmeric in his food three times a day!

Turmeric or curcumin helps stop cancer by cutting inflammation.  But it does so directly by cutting back on the expression of a gene that people have that is cancer friendly in addition.

But there’s more!  Taking curcumin or turmeric with black pepper also helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease at least two ways and maybe three ways!

b)  Dr Blaylock doesn’t mention eating ginger or taking ginger supplements.  But ginger is related to turmeric and is also quite anti-inflammatory.  Many of the studies on ginger focused on its strong heart risk prevention effects. 

Ginger tastes a lot better than turmeric to me.  So I like to eat foods that have ginger added as a flavoring agent.  And, I take some powdered ginger mixed into water each morning.  It doesn’t taste as good that way; but I like the mild glow I feel after I drink it.  And, I find that afterwards any minor aches or pains I have early in the morning go away.  (You can also get ginger supplements.)  And, ginger also has proven anti-nausea effects.

So taking it not only may help stop migraines, if your migraines have given you any nausea, that too may go away by using ginger.

c)  AND there is also a more challenging for some people way to fight inflammation that has massive health effects.

No worries if it’s a bit much for you.  If so, the actions and supplements already listed are likely to help you stop your migraines.  So no worries if doing several of those is all you can do or is enough by itself to stop your migraines.

But the actions in this last section if you still need them to stop your migraines will at least double your leverage on getting rid of them.

And, they will help you lose fat and protect your health a great deal if you do them even if you already stopped your migraines with the first things.

It seems that a main trend in our food over the last 50 years has been to gradually add a lot of refined grains and fats from animals fed grains to what most people eat.

The refined grains are double nasty and quite harmful.  People who eat foods made out of refined grains several times each day tend to get blood sugar and insulin spikes and add excess body fat.  And, they also get excess omega 6 oils from their excessive grain intake.

Many people also eat a lot of fatty meats or poultry from animals fed grains instead of their natural foods like grass and insects.  That causes their fat to have 10 to 16 times the natural amount of omega 6 oils.

And, since corn oil, soy oil, safflower oil, and canola oils are cheap, many oils people cook with or are in the salad dressings or mayo substitutes they eat contain them.  Oops!  They too are high in omega 6 oils.

That means that people who eat refined grains, fats from grain fed animals, and oils from cheap to grow grains have about 14 to 20 TIMES too much omega 6 oil in their bodies.

Since excessive omega 6 oil is highly inflammatory this is like taking a massive dose of inflammation pills!

If you are used to eating these things, it can be challenging to stop.

But it IS doable. 

*Virtually stop eating refined grain foods.  Eat your sandwiches Atkins style or as In n Out Burger puts it protein style.  Eat far less grain foods and more nonstarchy vegetables or beans.  And, when you eat a grain food, ONLY eat it if it’s 100 % whole grain only.

**Eat wild caught fish, beans, and beef from 100 % grass fed cows or poultry from chickens only pasture fed. And eat mostly wild caught fish and beans.

Eat cheese from cows fed only grass.

And/or when you eat chicken or meat or dairy foods from grain fed animals, be a bit extreme at cutting out as much of their fat as possible.  (The excess saturated fat, bioconcentrated pesticides and herbicides, and the excess omega 6 oils are all in the fat.)

Eat skinless poultry only.  Trim virtually all the fat from meat both before and after it’s cooked, 

And eat lowfat or nonfat dairy products.

(You can use mechanical tenderizers and add some extra virgin olive oil to make this kind of meat and poultry as tender and good tasting as the fattier versions.)

***Simply stop buying corn oil, soy oil, or saffola oil or any food containing them.  Eat as little canola oil as you can stand.  

****And use extra virgin olive oil from a brand you find tastes good to you 99 to 100 % of the time.

Olive oil is an omega 9 oil.  Using olive oil avoids using omega 6 oils or saturated fats that also have excess omega 6 oil from grain fed animals.

***** Take DHA and omega 3 supplements and eat low mercury, high omega 3 oils wild caught fish.  Sardines, small mackerel, herring, and salmon when wild caught each work for this.

The omega 3 oils LOWER inflammation and help balance any extra omega 6 oils you still eat.

(This way of eating also screens out most of the GMO foods you would otherwise eat even if you can’t yet get labels to reveal it’s there. 

Corn, soy, wheat, and canola that go into refined grained foods , oils high in omega 6, and the feed of grain fed animals are each most today from crops that are genetically modified to do things like include the pesticide INSIDE the food where you cannot wash it off.)

Does this low inflammation way of eating have a name?  Has it been tested to have health benefits?

Yes and Yes.  The DASH II diet is one version that lowers high blood pressure and has other health benefits.  The Mediterranean diet has tested as having heart and brain protective effects as well.

Our suggested way of eating adds the extra virgin olive oil of the Mediterranean diet and the seafood in it plus the animal fat reduced part of the DASH II diet for animals fed grain.

The way of eating suggested here is a blend of the best of both.  It avoids more omega 6 oil than either one and adds the olive oil not in the DASH II diet.

If you gradually adopt it, your inflammation level will drop dramatically in addition to what you can do with the supplements.

Your risk of heart and vascular disease and most cancers will drop like a rock. You’ll likely lose some excess fat.  And you may also stop the rest of your migraines!