Healthy Food Choices for Migraine Headaches

Video Transcript

MARY HONDROS: Migraine headaches, which are also known as vascular headaches, happen when the arteries in your brain expand and contract too quickly. So when this happens, you get kind of a very intense headache that some people describe as being in the very back of your head. What happens is that these are trigger by things like fatigue, stress and certain foods. There might also be a genetic component to migraine headaches. But in general, the foods that might irritate your migraine headache are things like caffeine, aged cheeses, nitrates, which are found in processed deli meats and MSG as well. So, the key to reducing the chance that these foods will affect your migraine headache is just to eliminate them as much as possible from your diet. So, four tips for eliminating these foods from your diet include: Avoid MSG that is found in Chinese food and some spices and some processed meats, because that tends to irritate migraine headaches. Also keep in mind to reduce the amount of caffeine that you consume. Excessive caffeine tends to worsen a migraine headache, whereas, a moderate amount of caffeine can actually relieve the headache. So, just keep in mind to keep your intake of coffee moderate, if you do have a migraine headache. Thirdly, try to keep nitrates out of your diet. Nitrates are found in deli meats. There are some evidence that they might irritate migraine headaches. And lastly, eat three to five small meals per day to keep your blood level steady so that you do not have big drops in your blood glucose, which may affect the dilation of those arteries in your brain which causes migraine headaches. So those were some tips on helping you out if you have got migraine headaches.