MedWire News: Women who suffer from migraine headaches at least once a week are significantly more likely to suffer a stroke than those who do not suffer from migraines, researchers have found.

Dr Tobias Kurth, from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and team studied data on more than 27,000 women, aged at least 45 years, who had no evidence of cardiovascular disease at the start of the study.

In total, 3568 of the women reported that they suffered from migraine headaches. Of these, 65% said they had migraines less than once a month, 30% said they had migraines once a month and 5% reported at least weekly migraine headaches.

Over the course of the 12-year monitoring period, 305 of the women suffered a heart attack and 310 suffered a stroke.

The researchers found that women with at least weekly migraine headaches were over three times more likely to suffer a stroke than those without such headaches.

Women who suffered from less frequent migraines were also more likely to suffer a heart attack than their migraine-free counterparts.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Chicago, Illinois, USA, Dr Kurth said: "Our findings suggest that migraine frequency may be an indicator for increased risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly... stroke."

He added: "Future studies are needed to address whether migraine prevention reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease."