Clear liquors, like white rum, vodka, and gin, have significantly fewer congeners and may cause fewer headache symptoms. Although, as we’ll discuss below, there are other factors that can lead to headaches no matter what form of alcohol you consume. Sulphites are often blamed for causing headaches too (though not migraines specifically),9 and white wine usually contains higher levels of sulphites than red wine. Red wine can also cause a rise in the level of a type of brain chemical called serotonin (5-HT) in the blood.8 This has been linked to migraine headaches, though once again, the relationship is poorly understood.
Alcohol: A Trigger for Headaches and Migraines
Substances such as sulfites, histamine, and tyramines are found in alcohol and may contribute to headaches as well. It has also been proposed that alcohol triggers an inflammatory response that can lead to a headache. People who cannot stop drinking should talk with a doctor about treatment for alcohol use disorder, which is a serious but treatable condition. A 2015 study suggests that the inactivity of alcohol dehydrogenase 2, an enzyme that helps break down alcohol, might contribute to hangover headaches. However, the study author also cautions that no single factor causes all hangover headaches.
- 2021 research also linked lifestyle factors with alcohol drinking and smoking to cluster headaches and their severity.
- Moreover, research has shown a decreased prevalence of headache with increasing number of alcohol units consumed.
- Sulphites could trigger headache through the release of histamine, as they cause symptoms only during a period of enhanced histamine sensitivity [51].
- According to the appropriate JBI checklist, cross-sectional studies had to be conducted on the basis of eight questions, case-controls had ten questions, while cohort studies contained 11 questions.
- The alcohol in the blood increases more quickly with liquor than with beer.
- Another 6 individuals were excluded because they never tracked alcohol consumption.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
No significant differences appeared between the migraines with or without aura and between migraine and tension headache. Some studies on the alcohol habits in migraine patients show a low percentage of drinkers in migraine patients. This was supposed to be due to previous experiences of alcohol as headache trigger, but one study does not agree [34]. Certainly, if a how to identify meth less alcohol preference in migraine patients will be confirmed in large controlled studies, it merits a correlation with 5-HT system, which is involved in migraine pathogenesis in some way. In fact, an inverse relationship between density and metabolic functioning of regional brain 5-HT system and alcohol preference was repeatedly reported in animal studies [69–72].
Conflicting research about alcohol-related headaches
For more information on alternative migraine treatments, visit our Resource Library. We recommend exploring complementary treatments such as biofeedback, green light therapy and aerobic exercise. The content on this website is provided for educational purposes only. While it is doctor-verified, it is not intended to serve as medical advice, and users are advised to seek the advice of their doctors before making any decisions based on the information in this article.
What Factors Affect the Risk of an Alcohol-Induced Headache?
The relatively low number of cluster-headache studies also does not allow an assessment of any correlation with alcohol drinking. Moreover, some of the studies included in our review do not present results in does ketamine cause cardiac arrest an accurate way or do so without assigning patients to specific headaches. Therefore, it was not possible for our meta-analysis to contain all those studies where drinking was described with primary headache.
More on Migraine & Headaches
Much like food triggers for migraine, people may have a higher sensitivity to certain organic components commonly found in alcoholic drinks. Studies show that many people with migraine choose not to drink alcohol for fear that it may trigger a migraine attack. However, researchers aren’t clear on exactly how or why alcohol can impact migraine. There is even some debate about whether alcohol itself or another chemical component in alcoholic drinks acts as the trigger.
The principal substances of the alcoholic drinks thought to be involved in headache provoked by alcoholic drinks are successively discussed. If you have frequent migraine attacks 5 expert tips to quit benzos for good fhe health at work, find out what might be causing them and how to overcome them. Discover what could be causing your morning migraine attacks and how to prevent them in the future.
Sometimes more sulfites are added during the wine-making process to help preserve the drink. But the exact cause of a migraine after a few glasses of red wine is likely multifaceted and may be due to a combo of the following causes. Therefore, the release of 5-HT possibly from central stores could represent a plausible mechanism for wine induced headache. The tyramine content of both the red and white wine was negligible 1–2 mg/L (9) in comparison with the tyramine doses utilized in oral challenge studies (100–200 mg).
While this is not necessarily true for everyone, it’s true for so many people that a trend toward abstinence developed among migraine-sufferers. In fact, one Dutch study found that 25% of people who suffered from migraines had stopped drinking because it was either an actual or potential trigger. Drinking even a small amount of alcohol can trigger headache symptoms in certain individuals. These symptoms may begin within minutes or hours of drinking and vary widely in severity. 2021 research also linked lifestyle factors with alcohol drinking and smoking to cluster headaches and their severity. Genes that play a role in opioid, serotonin, and dopamine systems also influence alcohol sensitivity.
The majority of cohort studies were within the range of 3–7 points, thus receiving a high risk of bias [52, 55, 58]. A detailed description of risk of bias assessment for the cohort studies is presented in Table Table3.3. In cross-sectional studies, six out of the 11 had a high risk of bias [46–48, 51, 56, 60], because they received fewer than 6 positive answers. Three studies were evaluated as moderate risk, with 6 “yes” answers [44, 57, 59]. Two of the remaining cross-sectional papers achieved seven or eight points and therefore were low bias-risk [26, 27]. Table Table44 summarizes the assessment of the cross-sectional risk of bias.