Blueman2 Yesterday I reported on the blue rat study, which showed that the food dye Brilliant Blue G (BBG) can be effective in treating spinal cord injury.
When discussing the research with Maiken Nedergaard, one of the study’s authors, she made the interesting point that migraine sufferers often recommend blue energy drinks as helpful in relieving an attack.
I don’t suffer from migraines. But I did find a number of people suggesting blue cures on message boards, including Sky Blue Sport drink, epsom salts with blue food colouring. There also appear to be patents filed for migraine tablets containing another type of blue dye.
It’s important not to read too much into the anecdotal cure. As for many conditions where no established treatment, the selection of suggested migraine remedies you’ll find online is vast and varied. No doubt if you searched for “covering yourself in tar and drinking pomegranate juice” you’d find someone out there swearing by it.
But in the case of the blue dye, there are other reasons for thinking that it might work. First, the study showed that BBG can cross the blood-brain barrier, which immediately opens up the possibility that it could have a direct action within the brain. In the study the blue dye was given in as an intravenous injection, and the researchers subsequently found a high uptake of the chemical in the spinal cord.
Second, it is known that BBG can act to suppress the effects of the neurotransmitter Adenosine Triposphate (ATP), which plays an important role in inflammation following injury. In spinal injury, ATP floods the affected area, causing neurons to fire uncontrollably, until they eventually die. BBG has a stronger affinity for neurons, however, allowing it to block the action of ATP.
Could it play a similar role in migraine? Conventional theories certainly don’t rule out the possibility.
Migraines are thought to originate in the brain centre known as the hypothalamus, in response to “something the brain doesn’t like”. This could be a particular food, a change in the weather, a stressful situation or some unidentified other.
According to neuroscientist and headache specialist Holger Kaube at the University of Freiburg, the migraine is the brain’s way of “evoking a state of disease and forcing a day or two of rest” by creating the need to lie down and stay away from light and noise.
The hypothalamus sets off a train of reactions which result in the dilation of the blood vessels in the meninges, the skin membrane surrounding brain. The dilation is accompanied by the inflammation of cells surrounding the vessels, which are intertwined with pain fibres, leading to a throbbing headache sensation.
Blue dye could either act on the root cause of the migraine by targeting and suppressing signals in the hypothalamus. Or it could act on the symptoms of the migraine by reducing inflammation in the membrane. Either one would potentially offer relief.
If this proves to be the case, the blue dye found in sweets such as M&M’s and blue Liquorice All Sorts could well prove an safe, effective and cheap way of treating migraine. However, as evidenced by the wonderful pictures of the blue rats, there is one small drawback. It could leave you looking a little blue in the face.
Posted by Hannah Devlin on July 30, 2009 in Medicine |
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