When Migraine turns Chronic: Is it Genetic?

When migraine goes from the occasional attack to an attack every other day or worse, we’re right to ask – what caused the change?

Writing about the question back in 2017, I suggested that genetics may actually be the biggest factor. Why? Because, in spite of typical environmental factors that seem to go along with migraine chronification (that is, the change from a once-in-a-while migraine attack to frequent attacks), some people just seem more susceptible. It seems that two people can be in the same environment, but one person’s migraine becomes chronic, another person’s doesn’t.

I say “seems”, because this is a very tricky thing to test. How do you make sure two people have the exact same environment? Impossible! So we look at typical suspects, such as physical trauma, poor use of medication, obesity, depression, sleep disorders, and so on.

But a new study decided to take a different approach.

This study from Denmark was published online this month by the European Journal of Neurology. The researchers took a large group of people – some in “migraine families”, some not related at all, and looked for common and rare genetic variants. Then they compared the information with the diagnoses of episodic migraine and chronic migraine.

Would they find specific genetic variants that make people more susceptible to chronic migraine?

No, they didn’t. There didn’t seem to be any relationship at all between genetic variants and chronification of migraine.

So, at this point it looks like genetics may be less of a factor then we thought. Which means a lot more research needs to be done into the environmental factors, and the comorbid conditions (other conditions that tend to make you more likely to progress to chronic migraine, such as obesity and depression).

Read the study abstract here: Chronic migraine: Genetics or environment?