People who suffer from migraines have a higher cardiovascular risk profile than similar people who don’t have these debilitating headaches, according to a new report. This is especially true for patients with migraines involving an aura.

Previous reports have linked migraine to an elevated risk of having a stroke. In the present study, Dr. Ann Scher, from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues examined the possibility that this was because migraine patients have a higher cardiovascular risk profile.

In the study, published in the medical journal Neurology, the risk profiles of 620 patients with migraine were compared with those of 5135 “control” subjects without migraine.

Migraine patients were more likely to be smokers, but less likely to be alcohol drinkers than controls. In addition, a parental history of heart attack at a young age was more common among migraine patients.

Compared with controls, people who experienced migraine with aura were more likely to have unfavorable cholesterol profiles, elevated blood pressure, and to report a history of early onset heart disease or stroke.

In terms of standard risk scores, migraine patients were about twice as likely as controls to be at elevated risk for heart disease, the investigators report.

Thus, they conclude, “further research is warranted to determine why migraineurs have these risk factors more frequently than nonmigraineurs and the nature of the additional mechanism that predisposes these individuals to early-onset cardiovascular disease.”

SOURCE: Neurology, February 22, 2005.