Everyone gets headaches once in a while.
Most people can just pop an aspirin and feel better. (I won't even get into the risks of aspirin here.) But for the 30 million Americans who suffer from migraines, it's not so simple.
1It starts off as a dull ache. Then it turns into a throbbing and pulsating pain that can last anywhere from a few hours to several days. And it's not just pain they have to deal with. Throw in nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound.
It's no wonder migraines can severely hinder a person's life. And - once again -
mainstream medicine offers little help.
Doctors often prescribe antidepressants, anti-seizure drugs and beta-blockers to help prevent these "mega headaches."
2 But like most prescription drugs, they come with
severe side effects - heart and liver damage and
inflammation of the pancreas, to name a few. If that's not bad enough, they don't always work. Sometimes they even make migraine symptoms worse!
Fortunately for migraine sufferers, researchers from the University of Liege in Belgium set out to find a natural and safe preventative measure. And they may have found just that.
In fact, the vitamin they studied could help you slash your number of migraines in half. You've probably even heard of it...
I'm talking about vitamin B2 (riboflavin).
The Belgian scientists first conducted an open study published in the journal
Cephalalgia.
3 For three months 49 migraine patients
took 400 mg of B2 daily. At the end of the study, participants reported a
68 percent decrease in monthly migraines.
The researchers were so excited by what they found, they followed up this experiment with a placebo-controlled study.
This time, they tracked 55 patients.
4 According to the journal
Neurology, half the subjects received 400 mg of B2 daily. The other half took a placebo. After three months,
59 percent of people in the B2 group reported at least a 50 percent reduction in the number of monthly migraines.
And even better...
B2 is safe. There were no serious side effects noted in either study.Dr. Richard B. Lipton, neurologist and director of the Headache Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York says, "It's one of my favorite natural products because it gives people with migraines the opportunity to feel better with very little risk." 5But how does vitamin B2 work so well?
A migraine occurs when blood vessels in the brain swell and press on nearby nerves. The result is pain.6 Abnormal nerve cell activity can result in the expansion of blood vessels caused by low cellular energy supplies.That's where vitamin B2 comes in...
Vitamin B2 helps increase energy production in brain cells.
7 In turn, it helps cells function properly in the brain.
So why haven't you heard more about it?
You probably already know why.
Pain relief is big business.
Americans spend more than $4 billion a year on over-the-counter pain relievers. You know them well - aspirin, naproxen, and ibuprofen.
But of course, they can cause serious side effects. Long-term use can increase the
risk for heart attack, stroke, kidney problems, and stomach bleeding.
The good news is you don't need to risk your health or life to eliminate pain or migraines. Research has uncovered a safe and effective alternative.
You can find vitamin B2 in many foods. The best food sources include lean beef, dairy, eggs, almonds and green vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli and spinach. Though, to get the high dosage needed for prevention you'd have to eat a lot of these foods.
So while it's good to incorporate them into your diet, you should also consider a supplement.You can find vitamin B2 supplements at your local health food store. Just keep in mind,
this vitamin is water-soluble. Your body can't store it, so
you must consume it every day.
If you are a migraine sufferer, relief is out there. You can safely ward off those debilitating attacks. Take vitamin B2 and enjoy a life free from pain again.
References:
1
http://www.headaches.org/education/Headache_Topic_Sheets/Migraine
2
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/migraine/medications-for-preventing-migraine-attacks.html
3
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7828189
4
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9484373
5
http://journals.lww.com/neurologynow/toc/2012/08030
6
http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/migraine.cfm
7
http://www.bastyrcenter.org/content/view/438/
Now this interesting site which seems crazy on one subject (vaccines)-- prepared to believe in so much evil perpetrated by the medical community for the sake of money-- which is to my mind hard to believe-- I'd like to say something about the above article (if I may). I suffered with migraines from the age of ten up into my 50's. I could not have a job, and my children knew me as a ghost in a dark room over thousands of long days. The only help I ever got-- the only believers in the reality of my condition-- were medical doctors. They gave me painkillers, which was a delicate thing, and I got vasoconstrictors. These had to be superstrong.
All these years I was plagued also by well-meaning but foolish aquaintances who scolded me and tried and sometimes succeeded in taking me to their alternative medicine people and gave me feverfew tea and got me to have my back adjusted. None of those things was ever relevant to my headache pain. I assure you, the above recommendations-- so confidently offered-- are laughable . Even as alternative medicine remedies they're old, they're not new. I'd like to assure any cynical MD-despising reader-- Naturopaths ALSO like to make money. And not being accountable by way of test results or anything like that, but being soothing and saying the word "natural" and talking sweetly about magnesium (smart) and fresh vegetables (wholesome!), they're apt to make lots of it. And offering these easy but pointless things only makes it worse for sufferers, who, when they fail to get relief, feel more exhausted and more hopeless to find these 'virtuous natural' solutions don't work on them. Of course neither will charms or poems but this is not their fault.