Skipping meals, for some people, is a sure way to get a migraine headache. Even those who do not suffer from migraines can get a headache from not eating breakfast and lunch. However, fasting has remained popular for the treatment of various conditions. Migraine sufferers who suspect that some foods may be triggering their headaches are sometime advised to try an elimination diet. This diet often begins with a fast and then one type of food is introduced at a time to see if it triggers a negative reaction. Anecdotal reports describe relief of migraine headaches with fasting for periods of up to five days. Some programs recommend five-day fasts twice a year, while others are advocating five days each month. A 5:2 diet involves eating a normal amount of calories for five days and the following two days eating 1/4 of that amount. The problem is that some people will have worsening of their headaches in the first day or two. However, most patient reports that after having headaches for a day or two the head becomes very clear.

It is not clear if fasting helps various medical conditions, if indeed it does, which remains an open question. One potential mechanism may involve stem cells. Recent studies suggest that fasting causes proliferation of stem cells. The study was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The research was done in mice and showed that prolonged fasting protects against immune system damage and induce immune system regeneration. The researchers speculated that fasting induces stem cells from a dormant state to a state of proliferation.

One of the authors of the study said that “We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system. When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged. What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. ”

Fasting and induction of stem cells seems to reduce an enzyme which has been linked to aging, tumor progression and cancer. Fasting also protected against toxicity in a small human trial where patients fasted for 72 hours prior to chemotherapy.

“Chemotherapy causes significant collateral damage to the immune system. The results of this study suggest that fasting may mitigate some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy.”

So, how long do you need to fast to induce your stem cells and to get beneficial results? Some advocate suggest one or two days a week. Others promote twice yearly five-day fasts. The bottom line, we have no research on this topic.

Fasting may help protect against brain disease. Researchers at the National Institute on Aging have found evidence that fasting for one or two days a week can prevent the effects of Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease. Research also found that cutting the daily intake to 500 calories a day for two days out of the seven can show clear beneficial effects for the brain. It is possible that fasting helps by inducing proliferation of stem cells in the brain.

Fasting cuts your risk of heart disease and diabetes:
Regularly going a day without food reduces your risk of heart disease and diabetes. Studies show that fasting releases a significant surge in human growth hormone, which is associated with speeding up metabolism and burning off fat. Shedding fat is known to cut the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Doctors are even starting to consider fasting as a treatment.

3. Fasting effectively treats cancer in human cells:
A study from the journal of aging found that cancer patients who included fasting into their therapy perceived fewer side effects from chemotherapy. All tests conducted so far show that fasting improves survival, slow tumor growth and limit the spread of tumors. The National Institute on Aging has also studied one type of breast cancer in detail to further understand the effects of fasting on cancer. As a result of fasting, the cancer cells tried to make new proteins and took other steps to keep growing and dividing. As a result of these steps, which in turn led to a number of other steps, damaging free radical molecules were created which broke down the cancer cells own DNA and caused their destruction! It’s cellular suicide, the cancer cell is trying to replace all of the stuff missing in the bloodstream that it needs to survive after a period of fasting, but can’t. In turn, it tries to create them and this leads to its own destruction.

This post contains direct quotes from collective-evolution.com

Stress is considered to be one of the main migraine triggers. However, a study just published in the journal Neurology suggests that it is the period after stress when people are more likely to develop a migraine.

A group of doctors at the Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx led by Dr. Richard Lipton enrolled 22 participants, of whom 17 completed their diaries. These migraine sufferers made 2,011 diary entries including 110 migraine attacks eligible for statistical analysis. Level of stress was not generally associated with migraine occurrence. However, decline in stress from one evening diary to the next was associated with an increased chance of migraine over the subsequent 6 to 18 hours. The authors concluded that the reduction in stress from one day to the next is associated with migraine onset the next day. They said that “The decline in stress may be a warning sign for an impending migraine attack and may create opportunities for preemptive drug or behavioral interventions.”

What they meant is that people could try meditation and other relaxation techniques or, if that is ineffective, they could take a medication ahead of time. Taking medication before headache starts is often more effective and requires milder and fewer drugs than if a migraine is already in full bloom.

Many migraine sufferers know that changes in sleep, meal intake, weather, and stress can trigger an attack. So, it is important to keep your life stable as much as possible. Biofeedback, meditation and other relaxation techniques, as well as regular aerobic exercise, magnesium and other supplements, all could improve the resistance against migraine attacks.

The accompanying editorial in Neurology mentioned that migraine is the single biggest source of neurologic disability in the world and any practical finding that helps people avoid migraines can have a major impact on lives of millions of people.

Research by Israeli pediatric neurologists confirms the clinical observation that chewing gum can make headaches worse. By chewing gum teenagers and younger children appear to be giving themselves headaches, according to a study published in the journal Pediatric Neurology.

Dr. Watemberg, the lead author said that “Out of our 30 patients, 26 reported significant improvement, and 19 had complete headache resolution. Twenty of the improved patients later agreed to go back to chewing gum, and all of them reported an immediate relapse of symptoms.”

Headaches occur in about 6% of children before puberty and become three times as frequent in girls after puberty. Typical triggers are stress, lack of sleep, dehydration, skipping meals, noise, and menstruation. Teenage girl patients are more likely to chew gum – a finding supported by previous dental studies.

Two previous studies linked gum chewing to headaches. One study suggested that gum chewing causes stress to the temporomandibular joint, or TMJ. The other study blamed aspartame, the artificial sweetener used in most popular chewing gums. Dr. Watemberg favors the TMJ explanation because gum does not contain much aspartame. I suspect that it is not the TMJ joint itself that is responsible for headaches, but tension in masticatory muscles – those we chew with. The main ones are temporalis muscles – the ones over the temples, and masseter – those at the corner of the jaw. I can sometimes tell that those muscles are at least in part responsible for headaches as soon as the patient enters the room because they have a square jaw due to enlarged masseter muscles.

Dr. Watemberg says “Every doctor knows that overuse of the TMJ will cause headaches. I believe this is what’s happening when children and teenagers chew gum excessively.” and that his findings can be put to use immediately. By advising teenagers with chronic headaches to simply stop chewing gum, doctors can provide many of them with prompt relief.

For people with hypertrophied (enlarged due to overuse) muscles stopping chewing gum sometimes is not sufficient or they never chew gum, but develop this condition because they clench and grind their teeth in sleep. These patients often respond well to injections of Botox, which shrinks those muscles and often eliminates headaches and relieves TMJ pain and dysfunction. However, Botox is only approved by the FDA for the treatment of chronic migraine and unless the patient also has this condition as well (which is common), the insurance may not reimburse for Botox injections. Biofeedback is another effective treatment for both TMJ disorder and chronic migraines.

Photo credit: JulieMauskop.com

Many migraine sufferers appear to have cold hands and nose, according to a new study by Finnish researchers described in the Wall Street Journal. The study compared 12 women with migraines with 29 healthy controls without migraines. Family history of migraine was present in 85% of those with migraines and 31% of controls. Five migraine sufferers had auras. The average temperature of the nose and hands was 3.6 degrees lower in migraine sufferers and two out of three had temperatures lower than 86 degrees, which is considered the lower end of normal. Only one out of three of those without migraines had temperatures below 85 degrees.

The authors speculate that the disturbance of the autonomic nervous system in migraine sufferers might be responsible for the constriction of blood vessels, which leads to lower temperatures. However, the authors do not mention a much more important cause of coldness of extremities, which is magnesium deficiency. Our research has shown that up to half of migraine patients are deficient in magnesium. One of the main symptoms of magnesium deficiency is coldness of hands and feet or just feeling colder in general than other people in the same environment. Other symptoms of magnesium deficiency are muscle cramps in legs and other places, mental fog, palpitations, PMS in women, difficulty breathing (intravenous magnesium is also given for asthma), and other. Blood test for magnesium is not reliable because the routine test measures so called serum level, while over 98% of magnesium sits inside the cells or bones. So, if someone has symptoms of magnesium deficiency we strongly recommend oral magnesium supplementation or give an intravenous infusion of magnesium. I’ve also seen many migraine sufferers without other symptoms of magnesium deficiency who are in fact deficient and respond to magnesium. This is why I wrote an article for doctors in a scientific journal entitled: Why all patients with severe headaches should be treated with magnesium. This is also why I included magnesium as a buffering agent in Migralex, an over-the-counter headache medicine.