The next post is brought to you thanks to Amber Stephenson who is a member of my facebook page aptly called Natural Migraine Relief. She found the part about oranges causing magnesium deficiency in some migraine sufferers, interesting. I have to say I was intrigued as well.
Here is the article:
The idea that oranges are considered a possible trigger for migraine has surprised many of us, as orange juice is usually considered to be beneficial in our diet.
Not if you are sensitive to citrus. The citrus group of foods is a known allergen, including fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit. Additionally, a lot of commercial orange juice is squeezed with the rind on, subsequently bruising it and releasing synephrine, a vasoconstrictor.
There have been links between migraine headaches and synephrine as well as related vasoconstrictors, so it makes sense that this could be a trigger. Many patients found that freshly squeezed orange juice made at home had no adverse effect.
A 2004 study found that: “In migraine patients, plasma levels of octopamine and synephrine were higher compared with controls, although in migraine with aura, the difference was not significant”.(1)
Synephrine is a stimulant that raises blood pressure, which can also cause migraines. The theory being that migraine sufferers with a citrus allergy can gain relief from a low dosage of daily blood pressure medication.
Citrus fruits also cause magnesium deficiency in some patients, and magnesium deficiency has been linked to migraine without aura. In a study where thirty migraine patients were treated with magnesium versus ten treated with placebo, the number of patients experiencing relief was so high that the possibility of the test results being coincidental was less than a 1 in 1000 chance.(2) The magnesium was administered as a magnesium citrate supplement, 600mg per day, orally. Patients were assessed by computerized tomography before and after the three month treatment period.
Citrus fruits also contain histamine, another suspect in food related allergies. A study at Texas Tech in El Paso TX found a correlation between high histamine levels and migraine attacks in susceptible persons.
An unhappy relationship between hypoglycemia and migraine can be heightened by drinking of orange juice, lemonade or other citrus juice in an attempt to raise the blood sugar – the orange juice can actually increase the migraine pain and the blood sugar level is blamed instead. This justifies the importance of maintaining a food diary and testing for food allergies.(3)
One woman related how she had taken migraine medication daily for years, washing it down with an 8 oz glass of orange juice each morning. Finally, when her sons were diagnosed, it became apparent that by giving them juice daily, she had simply been stimulating the cycle of migraines. Incidentally, orange flavored drinks such as Tang and Sunny D also contain migraine triggering substances similar to the natural fruits, so if citrus is a problem for you, avoid them as well!
Elimination of citrus is much simpler than many other migraine trigger foods, and is relatively easy to live without. For people suffering severe food intolerance migraines, living without orange juice, lemonade and key lime pie was a minor exclusion from their diet.
Sources:
(1) pubmed15159465.do, Cure Hunter, 05/25/2004
(2) Magnesium Research, Jun 2008;21(2):101-8. PMID: 18705538, by Koseoglu E, Talaslioglu A, Gonul AS, Kula M. Erciyes University, Medicine Faculty, Neurology Department, Kayseri, Turkey
(3) Leira R, Rodriguez R, Revista de Neurologia 1996 May;24(129):534-8
Research by Grace-Alexander
When I used to have migraines, bananas would give me migraines and I thought it was the excess potassium but I couldn’t find any back up in science.
I was allergic to a number of foods (any kind of cheese except cottage cheese, coffee, chocolate, tuna fish, grapes, not gluten or wheat though etc) Since I got completely rid of my migraines, I also got rid of my food allergies and thankfully now can eat anything.
I believe that you can too.
Amber told me she’s researching all types of foods that trigger migraines and that don’t and that she’s really starting to go head over heels into Migraine Research which is GREAT because there is a lot of information on the web and I would love all the natural solutions, remedies and treatments be listed on one website (err.. this one!) for your benefit.
So thank you again Amber for sharing this with everyone.
Hello, everyone:
I think this article is the single most important article I have found in regards to my migraines.
Let me start by telling you that In 2007 I was diagnosed with RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome) which was caused by Iron deficiency. I took Iron supplements for a year and voila; I no longer suffer from the most debilitating thing I have ever experienced. I now take a daily vegetarian vitamin that has Iron in it and that keeps my Iron at the level it should be at.
Glancing at my Vegetarian vitamin label I see that it has 7mg of Magnesium which is 2% of my daily value. Now, I’m not sure how much Magnesium I’m getting in my diet but I’m dying to get my blood tested to see if my migraines (which I’ve recently developed as of 5/2009) are a result of low Magnesium!
My plan is to get off of my once daily Topamax (Vasoconstrictor) and my Midrin (Narcotic) at onset of Migraine. To be honest, I’ve been on them since August of 2009 (its November 2009) and I’m still suffering horribly. Aren’t these supposed to stop the migraines? I mean, I got an MRI and I saw a Neurologist with an MD, Ph.D. Isn’t he supposed to be able to help? These are our leaders, the ones we look to for healthy solutions for our bodies to live strong, healthy lives; but, instead they’re driven by the giant pharmaceutical companies that .. ah hem .. make my thyroid medication, migraine medication, etc.
I’m left self-diagnosing because my BlueCross/BlueShield Insurance doesn’t cover Holistic therapy. Here is an article my Oncologist friend posted on his facebook page:
Alternative Medicine is becoming Mainstream:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-alternative-medicine9-2009nov09,0,5522507.story
It basically says that Patients “spent about $33.9 billion on Alternative practices & things like yoga, etc. in 2007″
We need health insurance to cover our Alternative Medication for our Migraines and RLS and Thyroid problems. We’re smart, we no longer want to ingest harmful chemicals that have horrible side effects. Just google “side effects of getting off of Topamax”. ITS HORRIFYING!!!!
I’ve found that water helps my headaches a lot. Drink it in mass quantities, drink it a lot. It regulates your entire body and all of it’s functions.
I find that the more raw my food is, the better.
Sile is right about food allergies, isolate what your triggers are, talk to your doctor about what your food allergies are and keep a food diary. This is the most important step in combating your migraines, in my opinion. Food is what you are putting in your mouth every — single — day! It is what fuels your body. It controls how your skin looks, how you feel, your mental well being, the thousands (if not millions to billions) of functions of your body and many, many other things.
Our bodies are our temples; we so often forget that, I forget that and It’s all we have.
Keep your heads up & I’ll try to keep mine up until we can all combat this like Sile has.
Best Regards Everyone!
Amber
Magnesium Deficiency –
One cause of headaches and migraine headaches can be a magnesium deficiency.
Caffeine and Magnesium Loss
Caffeine consumption can lead to magnesium loss. Most of the people I know who suffer from migraine headaches consume high amounts of either, tea, coffee or caffeinated soda.
Magnesium is responsible for hundreds of different functions in the human body, so a deficiency of this one important mineral can lead to a wide range of seemingly unrelated maladies. Other conditions often linked to magnesium deficiency may include anxiety, depression, migraines, nystagmus (shaky eyes), asthma, heart palpitations, temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ), muscles cramps, mitral valve prolapse, rickets (sunken or barrel chests, scoliosis, bow legs, etc.), noise sensitivity and chemical sensitivity.
Migraines are often treated with medications containing magnesium sulphate, but yet most doctors fail to ask patients about magnesium intake in their daily diets. Studies show that most people in the U.S. and other industrialized countries often do not consume the recommended daily amounts of magnesium, so eating a diet high in magnesium rich foods foods would be a simple, inexpensive and logical treatment for many migraine sufferers to try.
Listed below is just a small sample of the studies on Pubmed on the magnesium-migraine connection:
Researchers at the Department of Neurology, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI, USA “hypothesized that disturbances in magnesium ion homeostasis may contribute to brain cortex hyperexcitability and the pathogenesis of migraine syndromes.”
Intravenous magnesium sulphate in the acute treatment of migraine without aura and migraine with aura. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
Efficacy of intravenous magnesium sulfate in the treatment of acute migraine attacks.
For more studies, go to the PubMed database at the National Institute of Health and enter the term:
migraine magnesium
in the search box.
For more information see my pages on:
Magnesium (Mg) deficiency
The magnesium deficiency and migraine headache link
Information found @: http://www.ctds.info/migraine-headaches.html
Always learning new things…I keep saying the healthier I eat the more migraines I get…which includes orange juice instead of my milk etc.. I will monitor this.
http://www.algaecal.com/magnesium/magnesium-rich-foods.html
I am definitely bookmarking this page and sharing it with my friends.
Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would love to mention that this post extremely forced me to try and do therefore! really nice post. thanks.
Hi Sylvia,
Sometimes it’s the combination of doing certain things that will reduce and get rid of migraines altogether. Have you tried to do a colon cleanse – I did when I started out on my quest to get rid of my migraines and it was the first step to detox my body.
Thanks for the link – very useful!
Sile
PS If you click on store (the tab above beside blog), I managed to wrangle a small discount from BlessedHerbs for anyone who is ready to start detoxing.
What a great resource!
This is great info. Been suffering for over 4 years and tried all kinds of medication. Currently sumatriptan that make you feel as though you are carrying weights on your shoulders and warm water feels like it’s burning your skin. Weird! Definitely cutting out orange juice as I had a feeling it could be that also buying magnesium tomorrow. Tried physio but it hurts and doesn’t really work. (It was free tho as I’m part of a study). Reflexology is very pleasant but doesn’t work either. Anyway, thanks again!
Hello there, You’ve performed an incredible job. I will certainly digg it and in my opinion suggest to my friends. I’m sure they will be benefited from this website.
Thankyou for helping out, fantastic info .
thank you so much for the information about the migraine-triggering component of oranges.i needed a science back up to prove it. nowi can tell my friend it’s the synephrine in it that triggers her migraine.
I don’t know about magnesium, but I can definitively say that oranges can cause migraines. I am a scientist by profession, and it took me a number fo years to figure out that oranges are the major trigger for my migraines. As a kid, I started getting migraines (always the visual aura first, followed by a mild to moderate headache that lingers for hours) after strenuous activities like basketball, hard workouts, etc., but it was hit and miss – only about 1 out of 5 to 10 physical workouts would produce a migraine. Later, in college, I began experimenting with my diet as a way to control the migraines as I liked to play basketball and other sports on a daily basis. One of the first things I did, among other things, was to drink orange juice each morning. My migraines subsequently escalated from once a month to several times a week. I became desparate and scanned the internet for ideas. Most lists of migraine triggers I came across included the more usual suspects like caffeine, etc. Then one day, I saw oranges and grapefruits on a list of possible triggers. So I cut out the OJ and, voila. My migraines went COMPLETELY away. Over the years I would occasionally have an outburst of migraines within a period of a week, then realize that orange matter was the culprit. Once it was a hot tea, where the leaves were steeped in essence of orange. Other times it was icetea made with oranges, a japanese Teppanyaki sauce, even smoked meat flavored with orange slices. I also learned that grapefruits and pomelos (a large sweet Asian cousin of the grapefruit) induce my migraines as well. Over the years, because of occasional mistakes, I have definitively learned that each time I ingest even the smallest amount of orange or grapefruit matter, a migraine will follow within 24 hours – EACH and EVERY TIME. Once I finally cut oranges out of my diet as a young adult, I believe that my sensitivity to the mystery chemical in oranges increased, such that the migraines no longer require strenuous physically activity to manifest. On the flip side, I can play basketball for hours and never get a migraine, so long as I avoid oranges and grapefruits. Interestingly, other citrus such as lime and lemons have no effect at all. I can consume them in large ammounts with no fear of a migraine. I am sure that my condition is a special (and very fortunate) case, as clearly most migraine sufferers have different, or multiple, triggers not related to oranges. However, if you want to test whether your migraines are related to orange/grapefruit intake, like mine, it’s easy enough to give it a try – just cut them out of your diet completely and observe. Hope this helps someone.
Lance Miller