Mental Disorders Associated With Migraines

To shed more light on the relationship between migraines and emotional disorders, the Sareen team used statistics from the German Health Survey of 4,181 people, aged 18-65, which was conducted from 1997-99. The survey asked the subjects about their history of migraines and mental disorders. Moreover, these evaluations were confirmed by doctors. Nearly 12 percent of the participants were migraine sufferers, which the team expected from past estimates of the incidence of the condition in the general population.

After ruling out the influence of factors such as age, gender, marital status and education, the scientists found that subjects who had experienced migraine headaches in the previous 12 months were very much more likely to also suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, panic disorder, agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) or simple phobia.

 Indeed, the study's analysis demonstrated that a history of migraines was associated with an 82 percent greater risk of any anxiety disorder and a 61 percent greater risk of any mood disorder. "Although the cross-sectional nature of this study cannot determine causality, there are several possible explanations of the relationship between migraine and mental disorders," Sareen's team noted.

"The two main theories that have been proposed are that (1) a common [disease-causing] factor (environmental or genetic) is influencing both conditions, and (2) a causal relationship exists between mental disorders and migraines."