Blood Fats- Villon Of Migraine

Women who get migraines have different levels of certain fats in their blood than women who don`t get these headaches, a small new study suggests.

If confirmed, the new findings could lead to a blood test that could diagnose patients with migraines, the researchers said.

The investigators found that the levels of lipids called ceramides were lower in the women with episodic migraines than in the women who did not have any headaches. The women with migraines had about 6,000 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) of ceramides in their blood on average, compared with about 10,500 ng/ml in the women without headaches.

Moreover, it also turned out that women`s risk of migraines increased with higher levels of two types of a different lipid, called sphingomyelin.

However, the study had some limitations: All of the participants were women, and it did not include people with chronic migraines, who have headaches 15 or more days per month, Ekbom noted.

Previous research has linked migraines to lipid metabolism problems, such as hypercholesterolemia, a condition in which people have very high levels of cholesterol in the blood, the authors of the new study said.