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Does chocolate help with migraines and does coffee cause headaches? It is often said that food can prevent, cause, worsen, or reduce headaches. What are the facts and what are the myths? Neurologist Gisela Terwindt and medical researcher Britt van der Arend gave an interview in the magazine Libelle about the relationship between food and headaches, and food and migraines. You can read the article here (in Dutch).

New research from our group shows that self-reported menstrual migraine diagnosis has extremely poor accuracy. Two thirds of women suffer from menstrual migraine, independent of self-reports. Pure menstrual migraine is rare. Women with menstrual migraine have longer attack duration and increased triptan intake during perimenstrual attacks, in contrast to women without menstrual migraine. Prospective headache (E-)diaries are required for a menstrual migraine diagnosis, also in clinical practice. Read the article here.

Migraine is a brain disease that occurs three times more often in women than in men. Changes are also seen throughout a woman’s life course. Hormone fluctuations play a role in this, but the exact pathophysiology is still unknown. The drop in estrogen just before menstruation may lower the threshold for having a migraine attack. Migraine attacks are therefore more often seen in the period of two days before the first day of the menstrual bleeding up to three days later. These so-called perimenstrual attacks are more severe and longer of duration. As a result, the headache returns more often after taking a triptan (recurrence), because the effect duration of a triptan is too short for the duration of the migraine attack. Therefore, there is a great need for a woman-specific (hormonal) treatment for migraines. Read the full article here (in Dutch).

Women in particular suffer from migraines, yet little is known about the causes and sex-specific treatment of migraine in women. Physicians and researchers of the Leiden University Medical Center and Erasmus MC are now changing that. They investigate the influence of sex hormones in women with migraine and look for the optimal therapy. Read the article here (in Dutch).

One out of three women experiences migraine, a brain disorder which occurs three times more often in women than in men. And that is exactly where it goes wrong: because health care is mainly based on the male body, treatment is insufficiently adapted to women. We believe that this subject deserves more attention in healthcare, certainly in combination with more specific attention for women in neurological disorders and in particular migraine. Read the article here (in Dutch).

Everybody can suffer from a migraine attack once in a while, but the risk is not the same for everybody. Genetics play a role, but also sex hormones can be linked to an increased risk. In this interview, prof. Gisela Terwindt, and physician researchers Irene de Boer and Iris Verhagen, share their insights and recent research developments.