Young women who smoke, use birth control pills and suffer from migraine headaches with aura are at greater risk of suffering a stroke.

Researchers have found that migraine headaches are linked to brain damage and stroke. Women who experience migraines accompanied by the occurrence of an aura are more likely to have minor levels of brain damage than women who do not have migraine headaches. An aura is a type of visual disturbance that often looks like arcs of light or blurry spots in vision.

Tobacco acts as a precipitating factor for headaches, specifically migraines. This is indicated in a study which shows that smokers have more migraine attacks and that smoking more than five cigarettes a day triggers this headache. The work has appeared in the Journal of Headache and Pain.

Women who suffer from migraines may take at least some comfort in a recent, first-of-its-kind study that suggests a history of such headaches is associated with a significantly lower risk of breast cancer.

Women who suffer from migraines may take at least some comfort in a recent, first-of-its-kind study that suggests a history of such headaches is associated with a significantly lower risk of breast cancer. Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center report these findings in the November issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Two types of oxygen therapy could offer some relief to adults who suffer from disabling migraine and cluster headaches, according to a new research review from Australia.

OptiNose announced that it presented important new data demonstrating the superior performance of its novel nasal drug delivery device with sumatriptan for the treatment of migraines.

The way locusts react to stress may provide an important clue to understanding what causes human migraines – and how to reduce their painful effects, says Queen’s Biology professor Mel Robertson.

Childhood abuse is more common in women with migraine who suffer depression than in women with migraine alone, according to a study published in the September 4, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Middle-aged men and women with a history of migraine and other headaches are more likely to have retinopathy, damage to the retina of the eye which can lead to severe vision problems or blindness, than those without a history of headaches, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Migraines may be doing more than causing people skull-splitting pain. Scientists have found evidence that the headaches may also be acting like tiny transient strokes, leaving parts of the brain starved for oxygen and altering the brain in significant ways.

Researchers have reported that people with migraines also may be suffering from some brain damage, as brain cells swell and become starved of oxygen - a finding that may help explain why migraine sufferers have a higher risk of stroke.