ArticleThe journal of headache and pain2020
Migraine, headache, and mortality in women: a cohort study.
Article in The journal of headache and pain, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Migraine and risk of all-cause mortality and specific cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The journal of headache and pain · 2025Pooled it
- Myocardial infarction, stroke and cardiovascular mortality among migraine patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of neurology · 2022Pooled it
- Lasmiditan and Different Triptans in Menstrual Migraine: A Bayesian Network Meta-analysis.Pain and therapy · 2025Review
- Investigating risk factors for migraine in Syrian women: a cross-sectional case-control study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Exploring the Causal Relationship Between Migraine and Insomnia Through Bidirectional Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization: A Bidirectional Causal Relationship.Journal of pain research · 2024Article
- Estimation of migraine prevalence considering active and inactive states across different age groups.The journal of headache and pain · 2023Article
- Article
- Mapping the insomnia patient journey in Europe and Canada.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Cross-sectional study of passive opiate smoking in relation to stroke and some of stroke attributable risk factors in women.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Review
- Temporal trajectories of important diseases in the life course and premature mortality in the UK Biobank.BMC medicine · 2022Article
- Type and Severity of Migraine Determines Risk of Atrial Fibrillation in Women.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2022Article
- Low Dose Naltrexone in Conjunction With the Wahls Protocol to Reduce the Frequency of Chronic Migraines in a Patient With Multiple Sclerosis: A Case Study.Integrative medicine (Encinitas, Calif.) · 2021Article
- Neurochemical metabolite alterations of the occipital lobe in migraine without aura by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.The neuroradiology journal · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMigraine carries a high global burden, disproportionately affects women, and has been implicated as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Migraine with aura has been consistently associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. However, published evidence on relationships between migraine or non-migraine headache and all-cause mortality is inconclusive. Therefore, we aimed to estimate the effect of non-migraine headache and migraine as well as migraine subtypes on all-cause and cause-specific mortality in women.
methodsIn total, 27,844 Women's Health Study participants, aged 45 years or older at baseline, were followed up for a median of 22.7 years. We included participants who provided information on migraine (past history, migraine without aura, or migraine with aura) or headache status and a blood sample at study start. An endpoints committee of physicians evaluated reports of incident deaths and used medical records to confirm deaths due to cardiovascular, cancer, or female-specific cancer causes. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the effect of migraine or headache status on both all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
resultsCompared to individuals without any headache, no differences in all-cause mortality for individuals suffering from non-migraine headache or any migraine were observed after adjustment for confounding (HR = 1.01, 95%CI, 0.93-1.10 and HR = 0.96, 95% CI: 0.89-1.04). No differences were observed for the migraine subtypes and all-cause death. Women having the migraine with aura subtype had a higher mortality due to cardiovascular disease (adjusted HR = 1.64, 95%CI: 1.06-2.54). As an explanation for the lack of overall association with all-cause mortality, we observed slightly protective signals for any cancer and female-specific cancers in this group.
conclusionsIn this large prospective study of women, we found no association between non-migraine headache or migraine and all-cause mortality. Women suffering from migraine with aura had an increased risk of cardiovascular death. Future studies should investigate the reasons for the increased risk of cardiovascular mortality and evaluate whether changes in migraine patterns across the life course have differential effects on mortality.
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