Washington, Oct 13 (PTI) Hormone therapy is safe fortreating menopause symptoms in women who suffer frommigraines, a study has found.
Migraine headaches are common among women, but due tovarious health risks can be challenging to treat in theelderly.
While hormone therapy is effective in relieving manymenopause symptoms, its safe use in women with migraines wasunconfirmed.
There have been few studies demonstrating the effect ofhormone therapy on migraines and subsequent cardiovasculardisease.
"Since migraines affect one in every four women and womenwith migraines are often advised to avoid hormone therapy,these findings may have significant public healthimplications," said Jelena Pavlovic, from Albert EinsteinCollege of Medicine in the US.
Hormones have often not been prescribed for migrainesufferers because of the association between exogenousestrogen use and an increased risk of stroke in women who havemigraines.
This led to the recommendation that combined oralcontraceptives - better known as birth control pills - shouldbe used cautiously or avoided entirely in women with a historyof migraines, depending on whether or not the migraines wereaccompanied by an aura.
Data for 67,903 participants of a clinical trial wereanalysed to further examine the relationship between migrainesand cardiovascular disease events and their interaction withhormone therapy use.
It was discovered that women with migraines tended todrink and exercise less than those without migraines and hadhigher vitamin D and calcium intake. Migraine sufferers werealso more likely to have night sweats and hot flashes.
Importantly, researchers did not detect a significantrisk of cardiovascular disease events associated with ahistory of migraines.
Most significantly, from the treatment safetyperspective, there was no impact from hormone therapy on thisrelationship. PTI MHN SARMHN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.