Have a headache? Blame the weather!

March 10, 10:11 AMDenver Weather ExaminerTony Hake

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Have a headache? The weather may be the cause!

We have oftentimes heard headache sufferers, particularly those that get migraines, attribute their pain to the weather.  These had sometimes been dismissed as an old wives tale but a new study shows that there is a great deal of truth to this. 

The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston has recently completed the first large-scale study showing how environmental conditions like weather and air pollution can influence headache pain.  Over 7,000 patients were studied in order to see if there is a link.

Kenneth Mukamal, MD, MPH, one of the authors of the study and a physician at BIDMC explains that, "Air temperature, humidity and barometric pressure are among the most frequent reasons that people give for their headache pain.  But none of these reasons have been consistently verified. We wanted to find out if we could verify this 'clinical folklore'."

Mukamal and his coauthors compared levels of pollutants and meterological variables at the time of the patient's hospital visit with corresponding levels on preceding days and subsequent weeks.  Using meteorlogical and pollutant monitors they compared measurements of factors such as air temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and dioxides from the three days prior to a patients’ visit to see if there was a correlation between these items and the patients’ headaches. 

The results of the study seem to prove that this old wives tale is true.  Of the factors considered, higher air temperature in the 24 hours just prior to a patient’s visit to the hospital was most associated with the headache symptoms.  There was a 7.5 percent higher risk of severe headaches for each increase of nine degrees in temperature.  Although not as profound, lower barometric pressure in the 48 to 72 hour period before a hospital visit also was seen to trigger headaches. 

Dr. Mukamal says, “Certainly our results are consistent with the idea that severe headaches can be triggered by external factors.  These findings help tell us that the environment around us does affect our health and, in terms of headaches, may be impacting many, many people on a daily basis."

The next time you have a headache, if it was a good bit warmer the day before or the barometric pressure was lower a couple days before, you may have found the cause of your headache!