Do Women Who Experience Migraines With Aura Have Increased Chance of Stroke?

A migraine with aura is a migraine that is accompanied by a visual disturbance before the onset of a migraine. It may involve flashing lights or zig zag lines and is sometimes accompanied by numbness on one side of the face or body. About 15 percent of migraine sufferers report aura with a migraine.

A recent health study on women may have found a gene involved in the migraine with aura, though they are unsure of whether this gene lessens the risk of migraines with aura or boosts the risk of stroke for those who do experience migraine with aura.

Nearly 25,000 white women participated in the study, which took place over 12 years. What the researchers found was that 18 percent of the women in the study reported migraine, 40 percent of those 18 percent experienced aura and in 12 years of follow up, 625 women had a cardiovascular issue, such as a stroke.

The gene, MTHFR 677C, was found in 11 percent of the study participants. By itself, it doesn’t appear to have an effect on cardiovascular health, but when found in women who experience migraine with aura they found that it increases the chance of cardiovascular disease. In fact, women with this gene and migraine with aura are three times more likely to have a stroke or other cardiovascular disease (including congestive heart failure and heart attack).

While it may seem that this would help in genotyping women with migraines with aura, experts are not suggesting it. Many say that more research needs to be done, on men and women, and that while they may be close to isolating the correct gene, it is a complicated process that is still unclear. The gene might be associated with stroke, but may not actually be the cause of stroke.

Doctors recommend that women with migraines with aura do not smoke or take birth control pills, because it increases their chances of stroke even further.

The study appeared in the online July 30th issue of Neurology.


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