Recent research by Gretchen E. Tietjen, MD, of the University of Toledo College Of Medicine, and her colleagues have shown that childhood experiences have an impact on headache frequency and cardiovascular disease experienced once these children reach adulthood.
Specifically Dr Tietjan and her researchers found children who experience maltreatment such as physical abuse, emotional and/or sexual abuse, and/or physical and/or emotional neglect, are more likely to experience frequent headaches as adults. In another study, Dr Tietjan and her researchers found that if migraine suffers’ experienced adverse experiences (as previously mentioned) as children than they were more likely to experience cardiovascular health problems as adults.
“It is clear…that early adverse experiences influence a migraine sufferers’ cardiovascular health in adulthood,” said Dr. Tietjen.
“Earlier studies have linked childhood maltreatment to frequent headaches and migraine,” said David Dodick, M.D., president of the AHS. “The biological underpinnings of this relationship should be a target of future research and clinicians should be aware of and evaluate for this important relationship in order to facilitate appropriate management strategies. Dr. Tietjen and her teams are pioneers in understanding the relationship between negative childhood experiences and migraine. Now we need to drill even deeper to understand the relationship between migraine, aura status, childhood maltreatment and CV disease risk.”
Source: American Headache Society