Childhood maltreatment linked to migraine

Adults and teenagers who suffered physical abuse as children have a higher risk of suffering from migraine. Migraine is twice as common among adults with a history of childhood physical abuse compared to those who reported no such abuse, a Taiwanese study found.

Childhood maltreatment might lead to an increased probability of migraine among adults. Nevertheless, the relationship between migraine and childhood abuse is unknown in adolescents. To study the relationship, researchers enrolled 3,955 Taiwanese students, aged between 13 and 15 years, from three middle schools. Based on a standard questionnaire, the researchers diagnosed 23 percent of the teens with migraine or probable migraine. A similar percentage - 24 percent - said they had been beaten by a family member sometime in their lives.

It was found that 30 percent of teenagers who reported such abuse had migraine symptoms, versus 21 percent of non-abused teens. The more frequent the abuse, the higher the risk of migraine. Migraine was diagnosed in 28 percent of teenagers who said they had rarely been beaten, and in 38 percent of those who said they had sometimes or often been abused.

This study shows that physical abuse is one of the factors that contributes to migraine risk.