Do you blame headaches on the weather? Maybe you're right!

William Atkins
Tuesday, 10 March 2009 18:38

Science - Health

If you think the weather causes your headaches, you can now back up your medical claims with a scientific study of U.S. researchers on the relationship between headaches and outside changing temperatures.


Kenneth J. Mukamal, Gregory A. Wellenius, Murray A. MIttleman (all from Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts), and Helen H. Suh (from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston) published their paper “Weather and air pollution as triggers of severe headaches” in the March 10, 2009 issue of the journal Neurology (2009, 72 922-927).

A headache is the medical condition in which several conditions of pain and discomfort are associated in the head and (sometimes) neck of humans. Headaches are usually caused by changes in the pressure of blood vessels leading to and from the brain.

Symptoms of headaches may also include fever, convulsions, stiff neck, eye and/or ear pain, and even loss of consciousness in severe cases.

Although previous smaller studies have tried to link headaches to various weather conditions and air pollution, the conclusions have been inconsistent at best.

Consequently, this research team decided to do something about finding out if severe headaches can, indeed, be caused ("triggered" as they say) by the weather and air pollution.

In their research, they studied 7,054 people admitted to emergency rooms (ERs) over a seven-year period—between May 2000 and December 2007—with the outgoing diagnosis of "headache."

Specifically, the researchers went back three days (72 hours) before the ER visit to see what the specific weather conditions were for the patients in their outside surroundings.

Page two continues with what the researchers looked at with respect to the weather, and their conclusion as to the largest factor found in their study that affects headaches.