Migraine Gene, Does it Exist?

Scientists have identified a 'migraine gene', raising hopes of new drugs to nip the crippling headaches in the bud.

Migraines feature in the World Health Organisation's top 20 most disabling lifetime conditions and affect one in eight men and women.

They lead to more sick days than any other illness - at a cost to the economy of more than £2billion a year.

The intense headaches, which can be accompanied by nausea and visual disturbances, as well as sensitivity to light, can take up to three days to pass, and one in seven sufferers believes that time off due to migraines has affected their career.

With current drugs not effective or not suitable for all sufferers, the latest breakthrough could make the condition more bearable for millions.

An international research team, spearheaded by experts from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in Cambridge, compared the DNA of thousands of migraine sufferers with that of other people.

This highlighted a genetic flaw that appears to raise the odds of the disease by allowing glutamate, a chemical that transmits messages in the brain, to build up in the junctions between brain cells.

Drugs that stop glutamate from accumulating could halt migraines, the journal Nature Genetics reports. Although past research has identified genes linked to rare forms of migraine, never before has one behind the most common form of the condition been found.

Dr Aarno Palotie, of the Sanger Institute, said: 'This is the first time we have been able to peer into the genomes of many thousands of people and find genetic clues to understand common migraine.

'Studies of this kind are possible only through large-scale international collaboration - bringing together the wealth of data with the right expertise and resources - so that we could pick out this genetic variant.

'This discovery opens new doors to understand common human diseases.'

Professor Christian Kubisch, of the University of Ulm, Germany, said: 'This research paves the way for new studies to look in depth at the biology of the disease and how this alteration may exert its effect.'

Professor Peter Goadsby, trustee of the Migraine Trust, said: 'The results of this large study of migraine sufferers brings us a little closer to understanding some fundamental aspects of the disorder, implicating an important chemical in the brain, glutamate, which turns on nerve cells.

'Such findings bring hope for new research directions to find better treatments for migraine.'

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Migraine Tip

A Migraine is more than just a bad headache. They can force sufferers to lie in a darkened room for up to three days and frequent attacks can severely affect performance at work. In some people there is an obvious trigger, such as certain foods, excess alcohol or even loosing sleep. So it's worth keeping a diary to check if there is a lifestyle factor to avoid. There is evidence that a supplement of 400mg Vitamin B2, and 400mg of magnesium can help prevent migraines but both must be taken regularly for several weeks to see a noticeable effect. The herbal remedy feverfew may also prove effective. All are available from good chemists but always consult a doctor or pharmacist before using any other medications.

Migraine gives woman Chinese Accent

A woman from Devon has begun speaking with a Chinese accent after suffering severe migraines.

Thirty-five-year-old Sarah Colwill puts the startling change down to an extremely rare medical condition known as Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).

"I knew I sounded different but I didn't know how much and people said I sounded a bit Chinese.

"Then I had another attack and when the ambulance crew arrived they said I definitely sounded Chinese."

The rare disorder is thought to be caused by strokes and brain injuries and causes sufferers to lose the ability to talk in their native accent.

There have been an estimated 60 recorded cases of FAS since it was first identified in the 1940s.

Mrs Colwill, who lives in St Budeaux in Plymouth, Devon, with her husband Patrick said her accent change had been startling.

"I spoke to my stepdaughter on the phone from hospital and she didn't recognise who I was.

"She said I sounded Chinese. Since then I have had my friends hanging up on me because they think I'm a hoax caller."

After researching FAS on the internet Mrs Colwill has been in contact with doctors from Oxford University who are interested in studying her plight.

She is undergoing speech therapy to try to revert to her West Country accent.

"I am frustrated to sound like this. I just want my own voice back, but I don't know if I will get it back."

John Coleman, a professor of phonetics at Oxford University, said: "FAS is extremely diverse, almost certainly not 'one thing', not a well-defined medical phenomenon.

"It is not the kind of problem that there are any easy generalisations about."

Sufferers can develop an accent without ever having been exposed to it as it is the change in speech patterns from a brain injury which causes the lengthening of syllables, change in pitch or mispronunciation of sounds.

Experts believe FAS is triggered following a stroke or head injury, when tiny areas of the left side of the brain linked with language, pitch and speech patterns are damaged.

The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, even though the sufferer may have had limited exposure to that accent.

One of the first reported cases was in 1941 when a Norwegian woman developed a German accent after being hit by bomb shrapnel during an air raid.

As a result, she was shunned by her community, who falsely believed she was a German spy.

In 2006 Linda Walker, 60, woke from a stroke to find that her Geordie accent had been transformed into a Jamaican one.

Source: Yahoo News.

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Scientists have solved the mystery of why migraine sufferers shun the light.

Light intensifies migraine headaches because of a particular group of retina cells at the back of the eye, research has shown.

The photoreceptors send signals to the brain via the optic nerve which stimulate migraine pain neurons.

Even small amounts of light are enough to affect the nerve pathway, sending victims running for the shadows.

People who are totally blind due to eye diseases such as retinal cancer and glaucoma are not affected by light during migraine attacks, the study found.

But this was not true of "legally blind" individuals with severely impaired eyesight, who cannot make out images but detect the presence of light.

Migraine is a one-sided, throbbing headache associated with symptoms that can include nausea, vomiting and fatigue.

The pain is believed to develop when the meninges - the system of membranes that surround the brain - becomes irritated.

Nearly 85% of migraine sufferers are highly sensitive to light, a condition known as photophobia, but until now no-one understood why.

Professor Rami Burstein, from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, US, who conducted tests on totally and "legally" blind migraine sufferers, said: "While the patients in the first group did not experience any worsening of their headaches from light exposure, the patients in the second group clearly described intensified pain when they were exposed to light, in particular blue or grey wavelengths."

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