Kurth T et al. (2006) Migraine and risk of cardiovascular disease in women. JAMA 296: 283–291

Women over 45 years of age who suffer from migraine with aura are at significantly higher risk of serious cardiovascular disease (CVD) than those who report no history of migraine, according to a recent study.

Kurth and co-workers performed a prospective cohort analysis of participants in the US-based Women's Health Study. Their investigation included 27,840 women aged 45 years or over, who were free from CVD and angina at study entry (1992–1995), and for whom data on self-reported migraine history and aura status, and lipid measurements were available. Overall, 5,125 (18.4%) women reported a history of migraine at baseline; 70.4% of these women had active migraine, of whom 39.7% reported aura symptoms.

Over the follow-up period (mean 10 years), 580 major CVD events were reported. Women with active migraine with aura were found to have a significantly increased risk of ischemic stroke (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.91, 95% CI 1.17–3.10; P = 0.01), myocardial infarction (HR 2.08, 95% CI 1.30–3.31; P = 0.002), and ischemic CVD death (HR 2.33, 95% CI 1.21–4.51; P = 0.01) compared with women with no migraine history. Women with active migraine and no aura had similar incidence rates of vascular events and angina to women without migraine history. The data from this study indicated that, following age adjustment, there were 18 additional major CVD events attributable to migraine with aura per 10,000 women per year.