Migraine with Aura and Blood Clots

A study published earlier this year in the journal Neurology may provide a clue about migraine’s link with cardiovascular conditions. The focus of the study? Blood clots.

The system that clots your blood is truly amazing. The technical term (and your word of the day) is hemostasis. Without it, even a small cut or a slightly damaged blood vessel within the body could be deadly. And yet, using an amazing series of communications and substances in the body, the blood stops flowing.

Of course, there are various diseases and conditions that can lead to problems. For some people, a cut is very serious, because there is a problem with the hemostasis system. For others, blood may clot when it’s not supposed to, causing other serious problems (thrombosis).

The recent study investigated coagulation proteins/clotting factors to see if there was any relationship with migraine with aura, or migraine without aura.

There is evidence that migraine in general, including migraine without aura, may be linked to heart conditions and stroke. But the link seems to be stronger with migraine with aura.

In this study, certain blood clotting factors (not all) were related specifically to migraine with aura. In case you’re interested, the von Willebrand factor, antihaemophilic factor A, and phosphorylated fibrinopeptide A, were all elevated in the migraine with aura patients, and fibrinogen was lower.

This is a complex system, so there is a lot of work to do to see how these blood clotting mechanisms relate to migraine. But this could be a big step toward understanding why migraine patients are at higher risk of heart disease, and it may also help us understand more about the mechanisms and causes of migraine itself.

To read another brief article on the study, check Potential causality between blood clot factors and migraine with aura at ScienceDaily.