Weight Loss & Diet Plans

Headaches and the Food Connection -- with Elaine Magee, MPH, RD

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MODERATOR:
You mention aspartame; were any other artificial sweeteners implicated as headache triggers?

MAGEE:
Not that I saw in the research. And only some people mention NutraSweet as a trigger, not a large amount. Keep in mind that stress is the number one migraine trigger. So one of the best things you can do is to work on the stress in your life and how you manage that stress. And eating a healthy diet and not skipping meals helps a lot of people sort of de-stress their diet. Our tendency when we're stressed is to eat junk food, and that's exactly the wrong thing to do, in terms of migraines.

MODERATOR:
In what foods is tyramine present?

MAGEE:
Food sources are all over the map. There isn't a lot of concrete data on tyramine content in foods. Basically researchers have found larger amounts in aged cheeses, red wine, alcoholic beverages, such as beer, some processed meats, avocados, overripe bananas (some experts say it's the peel that causes the problem and as long as you shave the outside of the banana to make sure no inside peel is being eaten, you won't have a problem), chocolate, nuts, seeds, pork, venison, and soy-based foods.

MEMBER QUESTION:
How much do wheat and gluten, as well as dairy products, play a part in contributing to migraines?

MAGEE:
Not the wheat gluten, to my knowledge, unless it happens to be one of the symptoms of the wheat allergy. But it did not come up in the common types of headaches that I researched for the book.

In terms of dairy, there is a connection between the fat, and I'm listing a specific fat, trans oleic acid. This type of fat is found mainly in meat, butter, milk and cheese. Some new research has shown that people who take in higher amounts of this type of fat were almost three times more likely to have hay fever, compared to people who ate the least. The cheese could be linked to the hay fever type of headaches.

Also, cheese comes up as one of our major tyramine sources. So if someone is sensitive to tyramine-containing foods, they may have problems with certain types of cheeses. There are so many cheeses listed in the "avoid" column that it's easier to list the cheeses that may not cause you problems, and they are:

• cottage cheese
• cream cheese
• Monterey jack (thought to be OK for many)
• mozzarella (also thought to be OK for many)
• ricotta

Many of the recipes in this book use the Monterey jack or mozzarella cheese for this reason.

MEMBER QUESTION:
Assuming a migraine is triggered by food or drink, what is the typical or average time span between consumption and onset of headache?