by: Alisa Fleming

The research is clear, food intolerance, allergies, and
hypersensitivities are key triggers of headaches and migraines.
Although each migraine sufferer may react to a different food or
group of foods, there are a few which seem to pop up as frequent
offenders: dairy (including milk, cheeses, and yogurt), wheat, eggs,
soy, corn, citrus, chocolate, coffee, beef, yeast, red wine, and
processed foods with additives and preservatives.

In the pursuit to identify these top offenders, scientists and
physicians have enlisted the oligoantigenic diet. This is a
hypoallergenic “elimination” diet, consisting of a selection of
foods that are presumably well tolerated. During their studies,
patients are told to eat only the “safe” foods outlined on their
version of the oligonantigenic diet in an effort to eliminate any
symptoms. Once the symptoms have gone into remission, the “high
risk” foods are re-introduced into the diet one at a time to assess
their potential trigger effect on symptoms. This type of diet should
be undertaken with the assistance of a physician, in order to ensure
adequate nutritional intake. In each of the 3 case studies listed
below, some form of an oligoantigenic diet was used:


60 migraine patients followed an elimination diet after a 5-day
withdrawal from their normal diet. Upon reintroduction, specific
foods elicited migraine reactions in a significant percentage of
patients: wheat (78%), oranges (65%), eggs (45%), tea and coffee
(40% each), chocolate and milk (37% each), beef (35%), and corn,
cane sugar, and yeast (33% each). When an average of ten common
trigger foods were avoided, there was a dramatic decline in the
number of headaches per month and 85% of patients actually became
headache-free! As science would have it, an added benefit was
welcomed by the 25% of these patients who also had hypertension –
their blood pressure returned to normal levels.
In a clinical trial 93% of 88 children who suffered frequent and
severe migraines recovered on oligoantigentic diets. Most of the
patients responded to several foods, which suggested the probability
of an allergic rather than a metabolic cause. An added bonus…
abdominal pain, behavior disorder, fits, asthma, and eczema also
improved in several of these patients.
A research study trialed an oligoantigenic diet on 63 children with
epilepsy, 45 of which also suffered from migraines, hyperkinetic
behavior, or both. The 18 children who had epilepsy alone saw no
improvement on the oligoantigenic diet. However, of the 45 children
with additional symptoms, 25 ceased to have seizures and 11 had
fewer seizures while on this diet. Migraines, abdominal pain, and
hyperkinetic behavior halted in the 25 children who stopped having
seizures, and also in some of those who did not stop having
seizures. Reintroduction of foods one by one confirmed that the
seizures, migraines, hyperkinetic activity, and abdominal pain these
children were experiencing related to 42 different “trigger” foods.

So why do so many people suffer from migraines and other headaches
when they consume these foods? The medical community is getting
closer to an answer. Researchers in Germany have discovered a
genetic mutation responsible for the “faulty wiring” and the
subsequent pain. Although clinical scientists have known for a while
that migraines are hereditary, the exact “defect” being passed on
was previously unknown.

About the author:
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