I’ve never had a migraine headache, but some members of my family have them, as do twelve percent of all Americans. Migraine sufferers don’t get much help from meds. A few years ago, the National Institutes of Health conducted a clinical trial with test subjects who suffered five to 20 days of migraines a month. The trial, which lasted only 16 weeks, examined whether increasing the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in the test subjects’ diets would reduce their headaches. Some of the test subjects also reduced their intake of omega-6 fatty acids.
The diet emphasized eating more fish and, for some, eating
less foods, such as potato chips, that are fried in vegetable oil. The diet
worked best for those who both increased their consumption of fish and
decreased their consumption of vegetable oils. Those people who ate the diet
high in omega-3 fats and low in omega-6 fats had 30 to 40 percent reduction in “headache
hours” each day. One participant, who stayed on the diet, said, “I haven’t had
a migraine, not even a mild one, in over two years. Going from having one a
week to not have any was just amazing to me.”
Researchers discovered that those who increased their consumption of fish had greater blood levels of oxylipins, compounds that are involved in
soothing pain. They had particularly high levels of 17-HDHA, an oxylipin that
has been shown to reduce pain in people with arthritis.
If you want to experiment with
increasing your omega-3 intake and decreasing your omega-6 intake—
- Eat more—fish, especially fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, (also caviar and oysters!); cod liver oil and flaxseed oil; flaxseed, walnuts, chia seeds.
- Eat less—omega-6 oils such as safflower oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, soybean oil, and foods fried in these oils.
If
you’re a migraine sufferer, it seems like this diet is worth a try.
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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