Cheap vitamin combination may hold key to migraines

A CHEAP vitamin combination has emerged as an effective prevention for one of the most common types of migraine, following successful clinical trials.

A cheap vitamin combination has emerged as an effective prevention for one of the most common types of migraine.

A CHEAP vitamin combination has emerged as an effective prevention for one of the most common types of migraine, following successful clinical trials.

Three successive studies involving almost 900 people who suffer migraine with aura, where headaches are accompanied by visual or sensory disturbances, found a daily dose of folate, Vitamin B6 and B12 could significantly reduce the frequency, severity and length of migraine.

Migraines affect about 12 per cent of the Australian population, and are three times more common in females.

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A quarter of migraines come with an “aura”, which includes blind spots, flashes of light, numbness, difficulties with speech and at in extreme cases, paralysis and coma.

Queensland University of Technology Institute of Health Biomedical Innovation executive director Professor Lyn Griffiths said the vitamin combination could help facilitate a chemical process in the body which was impaired in those people who had a mutation in the migraine susceptibility gene MTHFR.

This mutation causes a body to produce half the required level of an enzyme needed to turn B-vitamins — folate, Vitamin B12 and B6 — into forms that the body can use. But “helper molecules” for this enzyme process are in certain vitamin combinations.

She presented the findings of the three clinical trials at the Australasian Neuroscience Society Annual Scientific Meeting in Hobart this week.

“It doesn’t entirely get rid of your migraines, but it greatly drops how often you have them, how severe they are and the disability associated with it,” Prof Griffiths said.

And while the last study looked at whether the amount of folate could be reduced, it found that the daily vitamin combination over six months wasn’t effective at levels lower than 2mg of folic acid, with 25mg of vitamin B6 and 400mg of vitamin B12.

“I’d love to see a single tablet on the market for this,” she said. “There are tablets around that have B6 and B12, but most have levels that are too low so you can’t yet buy it over the counter at the level needed.”

Her group is now working with pharmaceutical companies to develop the combination into a single dose.

Work is also being done on expanding the number of known genes involved in inherited types of the condition.

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