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American Morning

'House Call'

Aired January 30, 2004 - 09:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Twenty-eight million Americans suffer from migraines. A new study says severe headache pain could be a sign of something far more serious.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center with details on that for us this morning.

Sanjay, good morning again.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Really interesting story here, interesting personally and professionally. I suffer from migraines, so I was very interested in this story. Migraines are very common, Soledad, more common than asthma and diabetes, so a very common problem out there. For a long time, doctors have thought of migraines as possibly a reflection of some sort of underlying brain disorder. It's been hard to prove that.

But now there's a new study maybe giving that a little bit more merit; a study out of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" actually compared a bunch of migraine sufferers with a bunch of people who didn't have migraines. And what they were looking for was a specific lesion in the brain, reflective of a particular area of the brain, actually dying off. What they found, those lesions much more common in people who had migraine headaches alone, about seven times more common. If you had migraines and visual disturbances, 13 times more likely to have these particular lesions in the brain, versus people who did not have that.

And if you had a headache once a month, migraine once a month, I should say about nine times. If you had everything, someone who gets migraine headaches, the visual disturbances, and it's occurring more than once a month, you're about 16 times more likely than someone else to have these particular lesions in the brain.

Take a look at some of the pictures here. These lesions in the brain interesting. What they are, actually for people who pay attention to this sort of thing, are know as cerebellar infarcts. And what that basically means in an area in the cerebellum -- that's the back of the brain, where part of the brain has actually died off.

Look at the red arrows there -- these are the images, MRI scans, in those with my grains. What the find here, those white areas reflect areas of the brain that did not receive enough blood flow for a period of time, and thus had this area of the brain die off again, much more common in migraine sufferers than people without migraines. This is the first time perhaps, Soledad, that there's an actual imaging study, where you can actually image some of the consequences, or causes, of migraine headaches -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: That's pretty remarkable to look at, Sanjay.

Is there any evidence that if you treat the migraine, you can either restore or fix those lesions, or you won't develop any more of those lesions?

GUPTA: You know what's so interesting about this, is that they haven't figured out whether or not these lesions cause the migraines, or the migraines cause these lesions. That's going to sort of be the next step to this particular study. But your point is a good one, though. There are a lot of medications out there to prevent migraine headaches. People talk a lot about treating the very debilitating pain that's associated with a migraine, but there are medications to try to prevent those as well.

Take a look at the list. Some hypertension drugs -- those are drugs that treat blood pressure, might actually be beneficial in preventing migraine headaches. Antidepressants also perhaps. Topamax is an anti-epileptic that might also provide some benefit. Botox injections as well. People think of Botox for obvious reasons, keeping away wrinkles. They might actually prevent migraines as well. Pretty expensive.

There's also nonmedication sort of things, strategies to try to prevent migraines. There's a whole bunch of things. If you're not going to take drugs, adjusting your lifestyle, acupuncture, biofeedback, relaxation therapy, magnesium and riboflavin. These are things starting to gain some credence as well in terms of preventing migraines. But again, when you look at these pictures, pictures like that, you get a sense of what it is exactly that you're preventing, in addition to preventing the pain -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Really interesting pictures. All right, Sanjay, thanks.

GUPTA: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 30, 2004 - 09:43   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Twenty-eight million Americans suffer from migraines. A new study says severe headache pain could be a sign of something far more serious.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center with details on that for us this morning.

Sanjay, good morning again.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Really interesting story here, interesting personally and professionally. I suffer from migraines, so I was very interested in this story. Migraines are very common, Soledad, more common than asthma and diabetes, so a very common problem out there. For a long time, doctors have thought of migraines as possibly a reflection of some sort of underlying brain disorder. It's been hard to prove that.

But now there's a new study maybe giving that a little bit more merit; a study out of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" actually compared a bunch of migraine sufferers with a bunch of people who didn't have migraines. And what they were looking for was a specific lesion in the brain, reflective of a particular area of the brain, actually dying off. What they found, those lesions much more common in people who had migraine headaches alone, about seven times more common. If you had migraines and visual disturbances, 13 times more likely to have these particular lesions in the brain, versus people who did not have that.

And if you had a headache once a month, migraine once a month, I should say about nine times. If you had everything, someone who gets migraine headaches, the visual disturbances, and it's occurring more than once a month, you're about 16 times more likely than someone else to have these particular lesions in the brain.

Take a look at some of the pictures here. These lesions in the brain interesting. What they are, actually for people who pay attention to this sort of thing, are know as cerebellar infarcts. And what that basically means in an area in the cerebellum -- that's the back of the brain, where part of the brain has actually died off.

Look at the red arrows there -- these are the images, MRI scans, in those with my grains. What the find here, those white areas reflect areas of the brain that did not receive enough blood flow for a period of time, and thus had this area of the brain die off again, much more common in migraine sufferers than people without migraines. This is the first time perhaps, Soledad, that there's an actual imaging study, where you can actually image some of the consequences, or causes, of migraine headaches -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: That's pretty remarkable to look at, Sanjay.

Is there any evidence that if you treat the migraine, you can either restore or fix those lesions, or you won't develop any more of those lesions?

GUPTA: You know what's so interesting about this, is that they haven't figured out whether or not these lesions cause the migraines, or the migraines cause these lesions. That's going to sort of be the next step to this particular study. But your point is a good one, though. There are a lot of medications out there to prevent migraine headaches. People talk a lot about treating the very debilitating pain that's associated with a migraine, but there are medications to try to prevent those as well.

Take a look at the list. Some hypertension drugs -- those are drugs that treat blood pressure, might actually be beneficial in preventing migraine headaches. Antidepressants also perhaps. Topamax is an anti-epileptic that might also provide some benefit. Botox injections as well. People think of Botox for obvious reasons, keeping away wrinkles. They might actually prevent migraines as well. Pretty expensive.

There's also nonmedication sort of things, strategies to try to prevent migraines. There's a whole bunch of things. If you're not going to take drugs, adjusting your lifestyle, acupuncture, biofeedback, relaxation therapy, magnesium and riboflavin. These are things starting to gain some credence as well in terms of preventing migraines. But again, when you look at these pictures, pictures like that, you get a sense of what it is exactly that you're preventing, in addition to preventing the pain -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Really interesting pictures. All right, Sanjay, thanks.

GUPTA: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com