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ben_uk
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Mild heart defect may cause migraine with aura
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825253.700.html
http://tinyurl.com/8ednf
From issue 2525 of New Scientist magazine, 12 November 2005, page 22
MIGRAINES accompanied by visual disturbances could point to a mild heart defect.
Markus Schwerzmann and his colleagues at the University Inselspital Hospital in Bern, Switzerland, compared 93 patients suffering migraine headaches with aura with 93 healthy controls. They found that 47 per cent of the migraine sufferers had a heart defect called a patent foramen ovale, in which the left and right chambers of the heart remain connected by a hole covered with a flap of tissue. In contrast, only 17 per cent of the controls had PFO.
Sneezing, coughing or even straining during a bowel movement can force the flap open, allowing blood to slip from the right to left side without passing through the lungs. But most people with PFO don't show any symptoms, so the disorder is usually left untreated.
The researchers found that the migraine sufferers were much more likely to have mid-size or large openings, while those of the controls were generally small (Neurology, vol 65, p 1415).
The team speculate that tiny blood clots might pass through the larger holes and from there travel up to the brain and trigger a migraine. They point out that people who have had their heart defects fixed and those who have been put on blood thinners suffer fewer migraines.
UK research study -
http://www.surgery.man.ac.uk/migraine/
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