Latest Migraine Breakthrough Data

Online, December 10, 2009 (Newswire.com) - The study describes the widely accepted belief that arteries in the brain dilate and cause migraine as both "long standing and widespread". The teams of Dutch researchers however, were able, for the first time, to accurately measure the blood flow and the diameter of the arteries inside the brain during a migraine. The results showed conclusively that migraine attacks "are not associated" with the dilation of arteries in the brain at all.

The research paper concludes that "Contrary to longstanding and widespread belief, we failed to detect any evidence for a clinically relevant vasodilatation of major cerebral or meningeal blood vessels during migraine attacks" The paper continues "This finding has important implications for the understanding of the pathophysiology of migraine headaches and the development of future anti-migraine agents."

The study utilized a breakthrough form of experimentation. Until the application of the 3T Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA), there was no non-invasive imaging technique that could observe the blood flow and diameters of blood vessels inside the brain. The new technology can now visualize even the smallest blood vessels.

"We are delighted at this development" states Dr Elliot Shevel, South Africa's migraine surgery pioneer. "I have been asserting that migraines do not originate in the brain for almost two decades. It was this belief that lead to my breakthrough surgery being published in the UK in July last year."

Shevel, the Chairman of the International Headache Society's South African division continues "The medical and scientific community has clung blindly to this erroneous belief without any proof, for almost half a century. So this is a stunning revelation. Millions of sufferers could now benefit if outdated science is discarded quickly and efficiently."

"To understand the scale of this development though" continues Shevel "one must appreciate that teaching medical students that migraine originates in the arteries of the brain has recently, just in the last few months, been adopted by the entire American medical community as the sole explanation for the origin of migraine. So this new paper is going to have some very serious repercussions around the world"

"Stalwarts of the old theory who do not keep up to date with their duty to remain medically informed may continue, quite unethically, to propound what is now completely disproved. So I suppose we should expect a bit of a 'flat earth society' to develop for a while."

For the past few decades migraine drugs have been specifically designed to act on these very arteries that have now been shown to have no association with migraine attacks at all. "This is the reason that migraine drugs work so poorly" explains Shevel "and also the reason that just this week we are treating patients flying out from Canada, Ireland, and Mauritius and have queries from Greece and Saudi Arabia. These people are aware that there are permanent drug free solutions to their migraines that are available only here at The Headache Clinic in South Africa."