Holidays are again upon us. There are many reasons why people experience more migraines this time of year. Family drama, all the delicious unhealthy food, and alcohol. A report just published in the journal Headache brings some good news. Scientists proved that alcohol does not trigger migraines.
The researchers evaluated the digital diaries of 493 migraine sufferers who reported drinking alcohol. They used sophisticated statistical analysis including standard deviations, Bayesian statistics, Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations, and the like, to show that there was no correlation between drinking alcohol and developing a migraine the next day.
If you still insist that alcohol gives you migraines, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, who are you going to believe, the scientists or your own lying eyes?
Migraine patients who believed that red wine but not vodka triggered their attacks were challenged either with red wine or vodka. It was a blinded study – patients were not told what they were drinking. Vodka was diluted to equivalent alcohol content, and both were “consumed cold out of dark bottles to disguise colour and flavour”. And indeed, only wine triggered a migraine attack. A group of French doctors responded to this study in a letter to the editor. They stated that the only thing this study proved was that the Brits can’t tell wine from vodka.
