Another Piece of the Puzzle
The large number of men in the study is important, according to session moderator Laine Green, MD, who was asked for comment. “The biggest population that was studied with respect to cardiovascular risk was the Women’s Health Study, which was predominantly White nurses over time, and it is one of our biggest important pieces of information when it comes to cardiovascular risk, specifically looking at those with migraine who seem to have this doubling of their underlying stroke risk. Trying to get the same type of information from different populations is exquisitely helpful, because it’s long been thought that the risk for stroke and cardiovascular events seems to lie with females with aura. Knowing that there may be risk in other groups is important and part of the overall counseling that we do with patients,” said Dr. Green, assistant professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic Arizona.
The findings could hint at causal mechanisms, according to Dr. Seng. Preliminary analyses, not yet reported, suggest that age also plays a role in the relationship between migraine and cardiovascular risks. “I think that it’s important to [determine] to what extent migraine might back up the curve on the age-related timing of these events. Migraine peaks in the 40s, and that’s well before most of these cardiovascular events peak. We want to understand not just the cross-sectional relationships, which were large, but also the extent to which migraine may be having a differential impact on risk in different age bands,” said Dr. Seng.
Ms. Schwartz, Dr. Seng, and Dr. Green have no relevant financial disclosures.