WebMD Medical News Louise Chang, MD Feb. 16, 2010 -- Women with
a history of migraines may be more likely to develop multiple
sclerosis than women without the headaches, but it is not clear
if migraines are a risk factor for the neurological disorder. In
the first large-scale study to examine the relationship between
migraines and multiple sclerosis (MS), researchers found that
migraine sufferers were roughly 50% more likely to develop MS as
non-sufferers, although the overall risk for MS was very small.
More research is needed to understand if migraines have a causal
role in the development of MS, neurologist and study researcher
Ilya Kister, MD, of New York University Medical School tells
WebMD. "We can't say if migraines slightly increase a person's
chances of developing MS, or if they are one of the early
symptoms of MS," he says. "What we can say is that individual
migraine patients have little cause for panic or concern because
more than 99% of them will never develop MS." Women are twice as
likely to d