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Patients with migraine face elevated risks of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.
According to a systematic review and meta-analysis led by Wenyan Zhu et al., migraine may significantly raise the likelihood of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.
Migraine affects more than 1 billion people globally and has long been known to impair cognitive function during acute attacks. However, it has remained unclear whether this effect persists over time and contributes to long-term cognitive decline. Hence, this new analysis sought to address that uncertainty by evaluating whether migraine serves as a risk factor for dementia. Investigators searched 6 major databases and included 11 high-quality cohort studies encompassing a total of 6,964,353 participants. All the enrolled subjects were dementia-free at baseline and had a history of migraine.
The analysis revealed that those with migraine had a 26% increased chances of developing all-cause dementia (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.26). The risk was even more pronounced for specific types of dementia, with a 32% heightened risk of Alzheimer’s disease (HR = 1.32) and a 28% increased risk of vascular dementia (HR = 1.28).
Subgroup analysis further indicated that migraine with aura posed a greater risk of all-cause dementia as opposed to migraine without aura. Additionally, the link between migraine and dementia remained significant in studies with larger sample sizes (more than 2,000 participants) and higher methodological quality. Interestingly, meta-regression analyses found that factors such as region, gender, type of migraine, dementia diagnostic criteria, sample size, and follow-up duration did not markedly contribute to variability among the studies.
Thus, migraine, especially migraine with aura, could be an independent risk factor for developing dementia, highlighting the need for further investigation into underlying mechanisms and potential preventive strategies.
The Journal of Headache and Pain
Migraine is a risk factor for dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies
Wenyan Zhu et al.
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