TTH

A study of 1260 students in Germany set out to find out if certain adolescent behaviours were contributing to migraine or tension-type headache (TTH) attacks.

The researchers diagnosed students in grades 10 and 11 (ages 14-20) with either migraine, tension-type headache, and migraine + TTH.  It turns out that about 83.1% had had at least one attack in the last 6 months.  10.2% had migraine, 48.7% had TTH, and 19.8% had combined migraine and TTH.

But were there common factors among students with migraine or TTH?

For the combination TTH and migraine, the common threads were high consumption of cocktails, coffee, and smoking.  A lack of physical activity also seemed to contribute.

For migraine alone, high coffee consumption and a lack of physical activity seemed to be big contributors.

For TTH alone, a lack of physical activity was the only common thread.

So a lack of physical activity seemed to be related to all three.  For both sets with migraine, drinking lots of coffee contributed.

On a fascinating side note, there were a couple of things that didn’t seem connected at all.  Those two things were skipping meals or snacks, and not drinking enough fluids.  These are traditionally mentioned as key triggers, but in this case they didn’t seem to play a role.  Would it be different in adults?

Read the abstract of the study here: Associations of Diet and Lifestyle With Headache in High-School Students: Results From a Cross-Sectional Study