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Headaches and Heart Disease: The Lack of a Positive Association
Author(s) -
Featherstone Harvey J.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
headache: the journal of head and face pain
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.14
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1526-4610
pISSN - 0017-8748
DOI - 10.1111/j.1526-4610.1986.hed2601039.x
Subject(s) - headaches , medicine , disease , cardiology , electrocardiography , surgery
SYNOPSIS In order to investigate the relationship between headaches and cardiovascular disease, 200 individuals with recurrentidiopathic headaches were compared with age‐ and sex‐matched controls for the prevalence of cardiovasculardiagnoses and electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities. Only hypertension was diagnosed more frequently in theheadache group; ischemic heart disease and valvular lesions were diagnosed equally in some cases and controls, aswere rhythm disturbances. Matched ECG's were available in 161 pairs. Ischemic ECG changes were more frequent inthe controls than the headache cases. There were no other differences in ECG findings. This study fails to show apredilection for cardiovascular diseases, other than hypertension, in individuals with headaches. Ischemic heart diseasemay, by ECG analysis, be less common in headache cases than nonheadache controls.