Meniere Disease Tied to Higher Risk for Migraine

FRIDAY, July 22, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with Meniere disease (MD) have a greater risk for migraine occurrence, according to a study recently published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

So Young Kim, M.D., Ph.D., from CHA University in Seongnam, South Korea, and colleagues used the Korean National Health Insurance Service Health Screening Cohort (2002 to 2015) to identify 6,919 patients with Meniere disease and 27,676 matched controls. The incidence of migraine was compared between the groups.

The researchers found that the Meniere disease group had a 2.22-fold higher risk for migraine versus the control group. Meniere disease was present in 1,098 of 35,889 patients with migraine and in 781 of 71,778 matched control participants. Among individuals with migraine, 3.1 percent had Meniere disease compared with 1.1 percent of individuals in the control group, yielding a 1.95-fold higher risk for Meniere disease in the migraine group than the matched control group.

"In this case-control study of a nationally representative cohort of Korean adults, Meniere disease and migraine had bidirectional associations. Patients with Meniere disease showed a higher occurrence of migraine and vice versa," the authors write. "The diagnosis of migraine should be considered when patients with Meniere disease experience headache. Thus, the medicines for migraine could be effective in controlling symptoms of Meniere disease."

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