by Reuben Chow
Migraine is an often painful and sometimes debilitating condition which seems to be striking an increasing number of people in today’s highly toxic and stressful world. But a recent study conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle has revealed a strange twist – that women who suffer from migraines may in fact have a 30% lower risk of getting breast cancer.
Details and Findings of Study
For the study, led by Dr Christopher Li, a breast-cancer epidemiologist and associate member of the Center’s Public Health Sciences Division, the team collected and analyzed data on 3,412 postmenopausal women. Among this group, 1,938 had been diagnosed with breast cancer, while the other 1,474 had a clean history of diagnosis. The research team also collected information pertaining to migraines which the women suffered.
The study, which was published in November issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, revealed that women who got migraines had a lower likelihood of getting breast cancer. “We found that, overall, women who had a history of migraines had a 30 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not have a history of such headaches,” said Dr Li.
More specifically, the subtype of breast cancer which was most affected was those which are estrogen-receptor or progesterone-receptor positive. These types of breast tumors have estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, or both, on their cell surfaces. Generally, this makes such tumors more responsive to drugs which work by blocking hormones.
Dissecting the Migraine – Breast Cancer Link
It is not clear why women with migraines have a lower chance of getting breast cancer. A possible explanation for this unlikely link might be estrogen levels – high estrogen levels are generally associated with higher breast cancer risk, while, on the flip side, women who get migraines seem to have low levels of the chemical.
“Migraines seem to have a hormonal component in that they occur more frequently in women than in men, and some of their known triggers are associated with hormones,” said Dr Li.
“Women who suffer migraines suffer them either when they have fluctuations in their hormone levels or particularly low levels of hormones,” he added.
There are a couple of examples to back this hypothesis. “For example, women who take oral contraceptives ‘three weeks of active pills and one week of inactive pills to trigger menstruation’ tend to suffer more migraines during their hormone-free week,” said Dr Li.
And, during pregnancy, when estrogen levels are relatively high, the occurrence of migraines decreases. “Among migraine sufferers who reach the third trimester, 80 percent of them will not suffer any migraines,” Dr Li also said.
What Some Experts Say
Is Dr Li’s reasoning sound? Not according to Dr Ellen Drexler, associate director of the Division of Neurology at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.
“Migraine brains are more sensitive to many exogenous and endogenous factors, of which falling estrogen levels are an important one for many female migraineurs,” Drexler said. “However, female migraineurs are not known to have consistently lower levels of estrogen than are non-migraineurs.”
Overall, she is not convinced that the link between migraines and lower breast cancer risk can be traced to differing estrogen levels. “Genetic factors may also be playing a role, as well as exogenous factors such as medication use, smoking and alcohol use, which may vary between migraineurs and non-migraineurs,” Dr Drexler said.
“In summary, an interesting study, but more work needs to be done to conclude that it has furthered our understanding of the biology of migraine or of breast cancer,” she added diplomatically.
One person who was less diplomatic with his views was Dr Stephen Silberstein, who is the director of the Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. To him, the findings of the study are flawed because the presence of migraine cannot be determined using self-reported data alone.
“This study doesn’t prove anything. It’s not that I don’t believe the results, it’s that the results are not believable,” he said.
Conclusion
In truth, while the findings of Dr Li’s study may be interesting, it does not seem to have any direct practical implication on what people can do. After all, it’s not like women would deliberately try to get migraines in order to lower their breast cancer risk, nor would migraine sufferers celebrate their condition.
All in all, this study just, perhaps, provides some preliminary information which needs to be further studied, as experts attempt to better understand both migraines and breast cancer.
Main Source
Migraine Might Lower Breast Cancer Risk (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110601635.html)
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