CGRP Medications: Better for Men, or Women?
CGRP related medications for migraine are helping a lot of people. But if you’re going to try one, which medication should you start with? Does your sex make a difference?
This is a question that is rarely asked or studied. That’s why a study review published in the medical journal Cephalalgia this year caught my attention. It was one of many studies on CGRP-related drugs – but in this case it was looking at the difference between men and women.
And in the case of one type of drugs, there was a difference – the “gepants” – that is, CGRP receptor inhibitors/antagonists. The specific drugs we’re talking about are:
- ubrogepant (Ubrelvy)
- rimegepant (Nurtec ODT)
- zavegepant (Zavzpret)
Now, when these medications are used for acute migraine treatment – that is, when they’re taken to stop a migraine attack in progress – the evidence is positive. For women. However, for men, there is not yet enough evidence to show a clear benefit.
That doesn’t mean they won’t work for you – and maybe future studies will show a clearer benefit. But it could be that some of the CGRP medications simply work better in women.
It would be helpful to have further studies here, because if this difference stands up in further trials, it would be an easy way to pop certain types of medication higher on the list, because they’ll have a better chance of success, for you.
What about other CGRP medications? The meds for chronic migraine known as CGRP antibodies (the ones that end in “umab” – like fremanezumab or erenumab) seemed to work well for both sexes. Preventative CGRP medications also seemed to help both men and women, but the authors of the study would like to keep an eye out for differences in future studies.
Again, at this point this information shouldn’t stop you from trying CGRP medications. It may be information that can be added to the other info your doctor has in order to decide which to try first.
That being said, we look forward to future studies. Anytime we can make the path shorter to something that works to fight your migraine, we’re very interested.
It will also be very helpful in the future to find out why this is, so that we can better target migraine attacks.
To check out the study for yourself, click on Evaluation of outcomes of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP)-targeting therapies for acute and preventive migraine treatment based on patient sex (pdf).
